Alzrius
The EN World kitten
I just finished reading John Dunn's 1996 book The Spread of Islam, part of the World History Series.
As that last title suggests, this is part of a series that's meant for high school students (something suggested by the fact that the copy I picked up was still stamped with the name of the high school that had it before donating it to the bookseller I got it from), being a short read at one hundred-twenty pages with illustrations and photographs on almost every page.
In terms of its coverage of the history of Islam, the book did a fairly good job of walking the line between covering salient details without getting lost in the weeds. I've seen at least one (rather harsh) review which criticizes it for giving too little focus to Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, but I think that's an overstatement; those regions are covered, it's just that they're mostly presented in the context of global events from the last few centuries (nor is that the whole of the book's coverage of Islam beyond the Middle East, as wider events, such as the formation of Al-Andalus, are likewise given coverage).
Overall, this struck me as being a fairly even-handed (if perhaps somewhat dry) history book of the creation, spread, and impact of the religion in question. While there are certainly any number of areas where it glosses things over, that's kind of par for the course for this kind of work; a deep-dive goes against the overall theme, which is to serve as a high-level primer more than a dedicated study. Personally, I think that it does that rather well, and serves as a very good introduction for anyone who wants to acquire some basic familiarity with the history of this particular religion.
As that last title suggests, this is part of a series that's meant for high school students (something suggested by the fact that the copy I picked up was still stamped with the name of the high school that had it before donating it to the bookseller I got it from), being a short read at one hundred-twenty pages with illustrations and photographs on almost every page.
In terms of its coverage of the history of Islam, the book did a fairly good job of walking the line between covering salient details without getting lost in the weeds. I've seen at least one (rather harsh) review which criticizes it for giving too little focus to Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, but I think that's an overstatement; those regions are covered, it's just that they're mostly presented in the context of global events from the last few centuries (nor is that the whole of the book's coverage of Islam beyond the Middle East, as wider events, such as the formation of Al-Andalus, are likewise given coverage).
Overall, this struck me as being a fairly even-handed (if perhaps somewhat dry) history book of the creation, spread, and impact of the religion in question. While there are certainly any number of areas where it glosses things over, that's kind of par for the course for this kind of work; a deep-dive goes against the overall theme, which is to serve as a high-level primer more than a dedicated study. Personally, I think that it does that rather well, and serves as a very good introduction for anyone who wants to acquire some basic familiarity with the history of this particular religion.
