Since I spend so much time doing research in Central Asia (and even tonight I’m trying to finish a new chapter on religion in the region), I’ll be disappointed to miss the book talk below, since I’m so far away in Beirut.
Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane
Date: Thursday, January 23, 2014
Place: Columbia University
1512 International Affairs Building
(420 West 118th Street)
Time: 5:15 pm – 7:00 pm
In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia’s medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds–remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia–drawn from the Persianate and Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, and from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China.
