Understanding preindustrial societies (which were of necessity predominately agrarian) is surely very valuable to understanding how the modern world came to be, and where it might be heading. However to restrict this understanding almost entirely to what was known thirty-five years ago of agrarian Islamic societies, as Crone did, seems difficult to justify. The past third of a century has brought a great deal of knowledge regarding various important preindustrial societies which of course was entirely unknown to Crone, and about which in certain cases she had rather odd ideas. Students today would be better served by a less-dated book, such as Nolan, Patrick; Lenski, Gerhard (2015): Human societies. An introduction to macrosociology. Twelfth Edition. New York: Oxford University Press. Better yet, perhaps, would be assignment of a curated assortment of recent papers. And no review of this or other of her books should give the impression that her views on Islamic history, scholarly though they were, are or were even remotely universally accepted.
$100 bucks for Nolan? Naaahhhh. & "a curated assortment of recent papers" requires someone to have done the curation, that the curated papers be readable, and that the curated papers be short...
By "views on Islamic history" is meant not differences in material culture and economy organization, but instead her strong rather fringe beliefs that:
* "Islam" started out as a broad interfaith movement—Syriac and Monophysite Christians, Judahites anticipating the Messiah, Samaritans, and Arabs moving to Abrahamic "Hagarist" monotheism formed as a conscious parallel to Judahite "Sarahist" monotheism.
* "Islam" did not form in the Hijaz as a Quraysh-clan Meccan-merchant ideology during the lifetime of Muhammed, but later.
* That Mecca and Medina were not initially central.
* And that the exclusive focus on Muhammed as the Moses- or Jesus-equivalent of what became Islam was an Abbasid-era reimagining of the religion and the movement, much in the same way that post-450 Khalkedonian Christianity is a reimagining of the Jesus-movement Believer doctrines of earlier centuries; or in the way that post-Brigham Young LDS is not the movement that followed Joseph Smith west from New York in the early 1800s.
* When she has a choice, she will disbelieve an Islamic-tradition document that shows signs of having been scrubbed by some Abbasid era editor for their own political or theological purposes, and instead rely on what (she thinks) can be teased out of inscriptions, papyri, coins, and non-Muslim chronicles.
> Michael Dawson: What's been learned about Islamic pre-industrialism that clashes with what Crone says? What did she miss?
As I understand it, the Chronicle of Thomas the Presbyter records a battle between the Roman Empire and the "Arabs of Muhammed" as taking place near Gaza on February 4, 634. And certainly by the 680s it is very much settled in public inscriptions that Muhammed is the Messenger of God. For you can go to Temple Mount and Jeruusalem and see that inscribed on the Dome of the Rock, along with its dedication in 691/692 under the fifth of the Ummayid Caliphs of Damascus, Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan.
Karatani Kojin is perhaps the most well known public intellectual in Japan. He writes as a provocateur, someone who turns established ideas upside down (not production, but exchange; not Athens, but Ionia). He is not a historian, and would never aim to write a survey book.
Professor, check your math!
It's 35 years and yes we are old.
Hate to tell you (and myself), but 1989 was _35_ y.a.
Understanding preindustrial societies (which were of necessity predominately agrarian) is surely very valuable to understanding how the modern world came to be, and where it might be heading. However to restrict this understanding almost entirely to what was known thirty-five years ago of agrarian Islamic societies, as Crone did, seems difficult to justify. The past third of a century has brought a great deal of knowledge regarding various important preindustrial societies which of course was entirely unknown to Crone, and about which in certain cases she had rather odd ideas. Students today would be better served by a less-dated book, such as Nolan, Patrick; Lenski, Gerhard (2015): Human societies. An introduction to macrosociology. Twelfth Edition. New York: Oxford University Press. Better yet, perhaps, would be assignment of a curated assortment of recent papers. And no review of this or other of her books should give the impression that her views on Islamic history, scholarly though they were, are or were even remotely universally accepted.
$100 bucks for Nolan? Naaahhhh. & "a curated assortment of recent papers" requires someone to have done the curation, that the curated papers be readable, and that the curated papers be short...
What's been learned about Islamic pre-industrialism that clashes with what Crone says? What did she miss?
By "views on Islamic history" is meant not differences in material culture and economy organization, but instead her strong rather fringe beliefs that:
* "Islam" started out as a broad interfaith movement—Syriac and Monophysite Christians, Judahites anticipating the Messiah, Samaritans, and Arabs moving to Abrahamic "Hagarist" monotheism formed as a conscious parallel to Judahite "Sarahist" monotheism.
* "Islam" did not form in the Hijaz as a Quraysh-clan Meccan-merchant ideology during the lifetime of Muhammed, but later.
* That Mecca and Medina were not initially central.
* And that the exclusive focus on Muhammed as the Moses- or Jesus-equivalent of what became Islam was an Abbasid-era reimagining of the religion and the movement, much in the same way that post-450 Khalkedonian Christianity is a reimagining of the Jesus-movement Believer doctrines of earlier centuries; or in the way that post-Brigham Young LDS is not the movement that followed Joseph Smith west from New York in the early 1800s.
* When she has a choice, she will disbelieve an Islamic-tradition document that shows signs of having been scrubbed by some Abbasid era editor for their own political or theological purposes, and instead rely on what (she thinks) can be teased out of inscriptions, papyri, coins, and non-Muslim chronicles.
> Michael Dawson: What's been learned about Islamic pre-industrialism that clashes with what Crone says? What did she miss?
As I understand it, the Chronicle of Thomas the Presbyter records a battle between the Roman Empire and the "Arabs of Muhammed" as taking place near Gaza on February 4, 634. And certainly by the 680s it is very much settled in public inscriptions that Muhammed is the Messenger of God. For you can go to Temple Mount and Jeruusalem and see that inscribed on the Dome of the Rock, along with its dedication in 691/692 under the fifth of the Ummayid Caliphs of Damascus, Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan.
Now on my list too.
I liked Stavrianos's Lifelines from Our Past, but it is only partly about tributary societies.
A new book for my nonfiction book group.
Karatani Kojin is perhaps the most well known public intellectual in Japan. He writes as a provocateur, someone who turns established ideas upside down (not production, but exchange; not Athens, but Ionia). He is not a historian, and would never aim to write a survey book.