Product Description

-- Library Journal

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #537228 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-24
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Review
"A valuable contribution to the study of the rise of Orientalism and colonialism... perceptive and elegantly written." -- Arab Studies Journal "An important but neglected topic. Matar has done early modern scholarship an important service." -- Sixteenth Century Journal "Worth [its] weight in gold... Matar's work adds to the discourse of both orientalism and post-colonialism by providing essential detailed historical analysis of primary sources... Extremely informative and enlightening." -- The Muslim World Book Review "Matar's work is full of surprises for anyone who believes that Christian-Muslim relations have always been confrontational." -- William Dalrymple, New York Review of Books

About the Author
Nabil Matar is a professor of English and the department head at the Florida Institute of Technology. He is the author of Islam for Beginners, Peter Sterry: Select Writings, and Islam in Britain: 1558-1685.

Customer Reviews

Turkish delights
In 1603, Ahmad al-mansur, the then king of Morocco, made a proposal to his English ally, Elizabeth I. Had Elizabeth accepted, the plan would have completley changed the history of the modern world. The idea that he submitted was elementary: England should help the moors conolise America.
The king suggested that Moroccan and English ships, should together attack the Spanish colonies in America, expel their hated Spanish enemies and then "possesse" the land and keep it "under our [joint] dominion forever". There was a catch, however. It would be more sensible, suggested the king, that most of the future colonists should be Moroccan rather than English. Inevitably, the Moroccan offer was not taken up by Her Majesty.
This forgotten meeting of East and West is a subject that Matar has made uniquely his own, and in doing so, he has radically changed our perception of Elizabethan England's relations with the wider world. Rather than looking solely at literary works, Matar has delved exhaustively into the archives to produce a magnificent patchwork of forgotten prison memoirs government documents and Arabic chronicles and histories. The reason why I have given this only 4 stars, is the fact that the book has an overlong slightly unconvincing section linking English stereotypes of the North American Indians with the beginnings of Orientalism. However, as a feat of research alone, this book is a small miracle!