{"product_id":"creating-east-and-west-renaissance-humanists-and-the-ottoman-turks-hardback-9780812238068","title":"Creating East and West; Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks (Hardback) 9780812238068","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eCreating East and West\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eRenaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eNancy Bisaha (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780812238068\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 1 June 2004\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e320 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 2.8 cm, 0.662 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eCreating East and West\u003c\/i\u003e is carefully researched and develops a nuanced and subtle argument that portrays the complexity and variability of the West's intellectual response to the Ottoman challenge. It also underscores the importance of this period for the evolution of concepts such as East and West, Europe and Asia, and suggests how these Renaissance views influenced early modern attitudes, and indeed may still inform the modern discourse on Islam and the West.\" (\u003ci\u003eRenaissance Quarterly\u003c\/i\u003e) \"A fruitful, engaging exploration of a formative moment in Western culture, a moment that simultaneously gave rise to the vilified image of \"the Turk\" and witnessed the self-fashioning of European modernity.\" (\u003ci\u003eBulletin of the Royal Institute For Inter-Faith Studies\u003c\/i\u003e) \"A beautifully written and fascinating study that evokes an aspect of Renaissance Italian humanist writings long neglected by historians: the humanist responses to the perceived, and often real, threat of the Ottoman Turks (and Islam generally) to Europe in the wake of the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453.\" (\u003ci\u003eComitatus\u003c\/i\u003e) \"Bisaha provides the most comprehensive and nuanced account now available of the attitudes of Western intellectuals to the Turks, the Byzantines, and crusading in Renaissance Italy, an important time and place for the formation of Western cultural identity.\" (James Hankins, Harvard University)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs the Ottoman Empire advanced westward from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, humanists responded on a grand scale, leaving behind a large body of fascinating yet understudied works. These compositions included Crusade orations and histories; ethnographic, historical, and religious studies of the Turks; epic poetry; and even tracts on converting the Turks to Christianity. Most scholars have seen this vast literature as atypical of Renaissance humanism. Nancy Bisaha now offers an in-depth look at the body of Renaissance humanist works that focus not on classical or contemporary Italian subjects but on the Ottoman Empire, Islam, and the Crusades. Throughout, Bisaha probes these texts to reveal the significant role Renaissance writers played in shaping Western views of self and other.\u003cbr\u003e Medieval concepts of Islam were generally informed and constrained by religious attitudes and rhetoric in which Muslims were depicted as enemies of the faith. While humanist thinkers of the Renaissance did not move entirely beyond this stance, \u003ci\u003eCreating East and West\u003c\/i\u003e argues that their understanding was considerably more complex, in that it addressed secular and cultural issues, marking a watershed between the medieval and modern. Taking a close look at a number of texts, Bisaha expands current notions of Renaissance humanism and of the history of cross-cultural perceptions. Engaging both traditional methods of intellectual history and more recent methods of cross-cultural studies, she demonstrates that modern attitudes of Western societies toward other cultures emerged not during the later period of expansion and domination but rather as a defensive intellectual reaction to a sophisticated and threatening power to the East.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 1. Crusade and Charlemagne: Medieval Influences\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 2. The New Barbarian: Redefining the Turks in Classical Terms\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 3. Straddling East and west: Byzantium and Greek Refugees\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 4. Religious Influences and Interpretations\u003cbr\u003e Epilogue: The Renaissance Legacy\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Bibliography\u003cbr\u003e Index\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52555707842840,"sku":"9780812238068","price":64.59,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/creating-east-and-west-renaissance-humanists-and-the-ottoman-turks-hardback-9780812238068","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}