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The House of Wisdom

How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization

The House of Wisdom cover

Description

Bloomsbury presents The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization by Jonathan Lyons, read by Nezar Alerazi.

For centuries following the fall of Rome, Western Europe was a benighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy, and violent conflict. Meanwhile Arab culture was thriving, dazzling those Europeans fortunate enough to visit cities like Baghdad or Antioch. There, philosophers, mathematicians, and astronomers were steadily advancing the frontiers of knowledge, as well as keeping alive the works of Plato and Aristotle. When the best libraries in Europe held several dozen books, Baghdad's great library, The House of Wisdom, housed four hundred thousand. Jonathan Lyons shows just how much "Western" ideas owe to the Golden Age of Arab civilization.

Even while their countrymen waged bloody Crusades against Muslims, a handful of intrepid Christian scholars, hungry for knowledge, traveled East and returned with priceless jewels of science, medicine, and philosophy that laid the foundation for the Renaissance. In this brilliant, evocative book Jonathan Lyons reveals the story of how Europe drank from the well of Muslim learning.

Product details

Published 05 May 2026
Format Audiobook
Duration 9 hours and 16 minutes
ISBN 9781037206702
Imprint Bloomsbury Publishing
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Jonathan Lyons

Jonathan Lyons is the author of The House of Wisdo…

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