{"product_id":"9781608191901","title":"The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization","description":"For centuries following the fall of Rome, western Europe was a \u003cbr\u003ebenighted backwater, a world of subsistence farming, minimal literacy, \u003cbr\u003eand violent conflict. Meanwhile Arab culture was thriving, dazzling \u003cbr\u003ethose Europeans fortunate enough to catch even a glimpse of the \u003cbr\u003escientific advances coming from Baghdad, Antioch, or the cities of \u003cbr\u003ePersia, Central Asia, and Muslim Spain. T here, philosophers, \u003cbr\u003emathematicians, and astronomers were steadily advancing the frontiers of\u003cbr\u003e knowledge and revitalizing the works of Plato and Aristotle. I n the \u003cbr\u003eroyal library of Baghdad, known as the House of Wisdom, an army of \u003cbr\u003escholars worked at the behest of the Abbasid caliphs. At a time when the\u003cbr\u003e best book collections in Europe held several dozen volumes, the House \u003cbr\u003eof Wisdom boasted as many as four hundred thousand.  Even\u003cbr\u003e while their countrymen waged bloody Crusades against Muslims, a handful\u003cbr\u003e of intrepid Christian scholars, thirsty for knowledge, traveled to Arab\u003cbr\u003e lands and returned with priceless jewels of science, medicine, and \u003cbr\u003ephilosophy that laid the foundation for the Renaissance. I n this \u003cbr\u003ebrilliant, evocative book, Lyons shows just how much \"Western\" culture \u003cbr\u003eowes to the glories of medieval Arab civilization, and reveals the \u003cbr\u003euntold story of how Europe drank from the well of Muslim learning.","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47138868134128,"sku":"9781608191901","price":15.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781608191901_p0.jpg?v=1763838201","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781608191901","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}