Date: 2023
Type: Article
The English 'Universal History''s treatment of the Arab world
Intellectual history review, 2023, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 475-490
THOMSON, Ann, The English 'Universal History''s treatment of the Arab world, Intellectual history review, 2023, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 475-490
- https://hdl.handle.net/1814/76094
Retrieved from Cadmus, EUI Research Repository
The Universal History, which had a complicated publishing history from the 1730s to the 1780s, was a commercial undertaking by a group of London booksellers, aimed at satisfying curiosity for reliable information about the rest of the world. It was finally composed of two separate parts, the Ancient and the Modern, which, while eventually published as a single work, were distinct. Its first author was George Sale, the noted translator of the Qur’an, who emphasized the recourse to original Arab manuscripts, although, after his death in 1736, later authors had a different approach. This article looks first at the work’s hostile view of Islam and claim that sympathy to it was a tactic of irreligious thinkers to undermine Christianity. It then analyses the somewhat confused discussion of the Arabs, which varies according to the sources used in the two parts, before highlighting the emphasis on Ottoman despotism. It finally evokes the call in the Modern Part for a European expedition to free North Africa from the Ottomans, destroy piracy in the Mediterranean, and encourage the North Africans to develop agriculture and trade. This call was copied in the best-selling French work, Raynal’s Histoire des Deux Indes.
Additional information:
Published online: 09 March 2023
Cadmus permanent link: https://hdl.handle.net/1814/76094
Full-text via DOI: 10.1080/17496977.2023.2179883
ISSN: 1749-6985; 1749-6977
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
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