The Shadow Of The Crescent The Renaissance Image Of The Turk 1453 1517

Can we learn from history? A timely problem in the light of the recent dramatic developments in the Middle East and the immanent threat of international terrorism. The from time to time uneasy relations between the Christian West and the Islam originate in the seventh and eighth centuries and took shape in the Renaissance when for the first time in history knowledge of the Turks, a synonym of Muslims, was growing fast on the basis of first-hand experience, whether as agents of a western power, or as captives of the Turks. Apart from the unhappy but apparently universal tendency to represent ones enemy as the personification of evil, the fifteenth and early sixteenth western characterizations of the Ottomans as the sworn foe of Christianity are still pervading our concepts and terms, and are still formative for our own views. HES & DE GRAAF Publishers re-issues 'The Shadow of the Crescent,' because the book is concerned with the image of the Turk in the West after the fall of Constantinople till the beginnings of the Reformation and deals with the western attitude toward the Ottomans and the growing importance of the Islam. Certainly the problems were, and still are immense, not exactly the same, but undoubtedly comparable. At least we can learn from this book that there is nothing new under the sun.This book is primarily a survey of European responses, political as well as literary, to the Turkish advance into Europe between the fall of Constantinople and the beginning of the Protes

Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe considers the various attitudes of European religious and secular writers towards Islam during the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. Examining works from England, France, Italy, the Holy Lands, and Spain, the essays in this volume explore the reactions of Westerners to the culture and religion of Islam. Many of the works studied reveal the hostility toward Islam of Europeans and the creation of negative stereotypes of Muslims by Western writers. These essays also reveal attempts at accommodation and understanding that stand in contrast to the prevailing hostility that existed then and, in some ways, exists still today.

Using evidence from contemporary printed images, Smith examines the attitudes of Christian Europe to the Ottoman Empire and to Islam. She also considers the relationship between text and image, placing it in the cultural context of the Reformation and beyond.

The series Islamkundliche Untersuchungen was founded in 1969 by the Klaus Schwarz Verlag. Since then, it has become one of the most important venues for publications in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. Its more than 350 volumes cover a wide range of topics from the history, culture and societies of the Middle East and North Africa as well as neighboring regions in central, south and southeast Asia.

This volume aims to assess the longstanding debate over the role played by the Italian Renaissance in shaping the modern Western worldview.

A major study and an essential reference work, this book presents a critical evaluation of the sources on the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. In Part I: The Pen, drawing upon manuscript and printed sources, and looking at the contrasting interpretations in secondary works, the authors reassess the written evidence concerning the event. In Part II, The Sword, the investigation results in new conclusions concerning the layout of the Theodosian Walls, the offensive and defensive strategies of the Byzantines and Turks, including land and sea operations, and an analysis of some of the major engagements.

Crusades covers seven hundred years from the First Crusade (1095-1102) to the fall of Malta (1798) and draws together scholars working on theatres of war, their home fronts and settlements from the Baltic to Africa and from Spain to the Near East and on theology, law, literature, art, numismatics and economic, social, political and military history. Routledge publishes this journal for The Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East. Particular attention is given to the publication of historical sources in all relevant languages - narrative, homiletic and documentary - in trustworthy editions, but studies and interpretative essays are welcomed too. Crusades appears in both print and online editions. This first edition of the journal includes contributions from Jonathan Riley-Smith refecting on the number of knights who participated in the First Crusade and the number of casualties and Peter W. Edbury on Fiefs and Vassals in the Kingdom of Jerusalem: from the Twelfth Century to the Thirteenth.