Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early 'Abbasaid Society (2nd-4th/5th-10th c.) (Arabic Thought and Culture) 1st Edition

Well researched. Gutas presents a deeply considered and very logical theory about the transfer of Greek intellectual tradition to the Arabs.

Excellent in every way !

If the only thing this book did were to clear up the myth about the House of Wisdom, it would be enough.

A superb review of the subject. I thought I knew a bit about the translation movement into Arabic through Syriac, but Gutas showed me I knew nothing almost. Very deeply researched, by an editor of Brill's Mediaeval Greek and Arabic lexicon. There can be few scholars with such a grasp of Greek-Arabic translation, or of Arabic translations of Greek works. He demolishes some old myths - the idea that Ma'mun's "Bait al-Hikma" in Baghdad was anything other than a library is shown to be baseless speculation, for example - and provides us with a view of the translators that I'd have thought impossible before. The analysis of what was translated was most interesting.Who knows who "Jake", "Kevin" and the anonomous reader are! I see they - or he, as I suspect - have only done a single review apiece. If "they" are really disappointed by the work, it would be helpful if "they" did a fuller review of the book to let us what in "their" view the book's weaknesses are, supported by the text, if possible. I suspect however that it's Professor Gutas' public protests about the damage to Iraq's cultural heritage resulting from the war in Iraq that's "their" issue.For more general reading on the adoption of parts of the Classical tradition by the Arabic-speaking world, I can recommend Franz Rosenthal's reader on the subject, "The Classical Heritage in Islam". His introduction is excellent and the texts well-chosen.I thought the Gutas book interesting enough, by the way, to give a copy to my mediaevalist sister-in-law as a present.

The reviews below under the headings "Jake" and "Duller" demand a response -- not because they are negative, but because they are false and misleading. "Jake" claims that "Gutas is not a Near Eastern Studies specialist, so he is not qualified as an author." The truth is that Gutas is chair of the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department of Yale University. "Duller" asserts that intelligent people know that Gutas is not a scholar. The truth is that Gutas is one of the foremost scholarly experts in the world on the medieval Graeco-Arabic translation movement. Readers may disagree with Gutas's conclusions, and non-specialists may find his subject matter obscure (though it has profound relevance to modern issues), but surely Gutas's scholarly credentials as an expert in this field are above dispute.

The book arrived before time, and on the inside is clean. What annoys me the most are the many USED stickers stuck all over the book! On the front, back and side! On the front are two large, overlapping stickers and on the back at least THREE overlapping stickers! The book covers look like a disgrace, and this is not a cheap book! I have bought lots of used books over the years, and they always have one or two "used" stickers. These are small and placed discreetly at the side or back. But this, this is completely offputting.

Professor Dimitri Gutas has done all medieval scholars an inestimable favour. Nowhere in any other text is so much information available. It helps to have a good knowledge of Greek and Arabic, but even those not thoroughly versed in those languages can benefit from the historical perspective offered in this work. Especially of import is to know how the translation movement was initiated, its inspiration, the patronship, the immense progress in science effected by the information gathered from the ancient works.

Excellent book. A well written, well document reference on an era that remained disjointed in information, and vaguely referred to. Gutas collects the various pieces necessary to put things in order and clarify to most of us a history whose aftermath is known, but not the process. Very impressive. A highly recommended book.

After having read  Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World , I was motivated to read more about the transmission of knowledge from the Eastern Roman Empire through to the Islamic world. Unfortunately this work does not really fill the gap for me. It is mostly about the "how" and "why", that is to say for example what social conditions gave rise to the translation movement, rather than much detail about what kind of knowledge was thereby transmitted and how it was thereafter developed. Gutas does say that this kind of information has already been provided elsewhere (i.e. there's no point in him repeating what's already been done to death in other studies - he's trying to consider a relatively new area of investigation, namely how and why the translation movement arose), but I have yet to find any works fitting the description.3 stars, because it's not really covering the areas I wished to explore. To the academic exploring the social context, this book is likely to be of more value. Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World