Book recommendations on the Caliphate

Get Vol I of Venture in Islam by Hodgson, it is an academic read, from the 60s, but still the standard.  

Be careful with Lewis, he is a tad bit of an islamophobic, most especially in his recent more "popular" and less "academic" writing. We've reviewed him quite a bit, and while he started academics in the sixties or so like Hodgson, he obviously has been around more due to Hodgson's unfortunate death. Hodgson is the cornerstone of the more modern approach to world history that is not centric and the author of the great western transmutation (a rather elaborate and genious treatsy on why the rest of the world , with the Islamic world as a prime example since that is his expertise did not industrialize like Britain France and rest of the West Europe.

Edited by es_bih - 26-Sep-2008 at 18:28

See if there's a "Cambridge companion" to it - I'm not sure if you'll be able to get them in the states in any stores around you, but search on Amazon or something. They probably do, because there are such companions on all the main areas of ancient history and there are at least 3 on Shakespeare, and one for each major philosopher and their works.

I never said it is dangerous, not a censor, just to be careful not to take some of his "facts" to heart. But, as far as reading it for academic criticism, I have already done that exstensively with Lewis' work, especially his more recent publishing with a protegee of the late Professor Hodgson in a semester long seminar that was rather productive. Thus I have no qualms with that and would advocate that as well. 

My field for the most part is Medieval studies relating to Western Europe and the Balkans, branching off into the Middle East for the obvious reasons when co-related. As far as authors seems I read the same ones you do. Finkel is an excellent pick out of those to me for the Ottomans, for one not from the region natively, nor from any group that is trying to profit from a more specific history, which enables her to be much more neutral across the board when discussing. Lewis on the other hand is not necessarily neutral. One thing about him though, the man knows how to use sources, so for an academic persepcetive and a more hands on example what sources are and how sources are to be used he can be a pretty good example. His early work was more neutral, and lately more assumptive in my opinion. I get your desire for more hands on topics that are not broad. Did you read Saladins biography by Stanley Lane Poole?, in my mind a great work altough a century old, on the life of a great statesman. You may hear Mohammedan, etc... vocabulary wise, but moreso due to the commonality of the terminology at the time of publishing than because of some bias or ill feeling; Poole is neutral and specific, used a broad range of sources and gives a good account on the conquest of Jerusalem and its aftermath. 
Btw do you have any good recent works  written or translated into English on the Mamluks?

"Seeing Islam as Others Saw It" compiled by Robert G. Hoyland is a nice sourcebook which translates a few otherwise forgotten pieces of Syriac and other languages.

I've got a copy. The problem is the low publishing just for academic purposes. You might want to contact the publishers to see if they have any spare copies to sell you or even try Amazon. I've seen a few copies up for sale there every so often.

I'm halfway through "The Great Arab Conquests" by Hugh Kennedy now. I guess how you rate it depends a lot on what you expect. For a beginner this is an entertaining narrative history with brief discussions of the sources as they become relevant. If you've read a few books on the topic before I doubt you'll find much more than a retelling of what you already know. Kennedy's writing could be clearer in a few places, but it's merely nitpicks on my part that most people probably won't even notice.

Objectivity seems to be one of Kennedy's strong points. In no way, so far at least, does he tend toward islamophobia nor political correctness. He gives the Arabs full credit for their military achievements against larger and more well-equipped enemies, but doesn't shy away from aspects that may be repugnant to modern readers, such as the vast quantities of Berber slaves taken in the early stages of the conquest of the Maghreb.