George Saliba
Lebanese-American historian of Arabic and Islamic science, longtime professor at Columbia University, known for influential research on the development of astronomy in the Islamic world and its impact on the European Renaissance.
Books
This list of books are ONLY the books that have been ranked on the lists that are aggregated on this site. This is not a comprehensive list of all books by this author.
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1. Islamic Science And The Making Of The European Renaissance
Argues that the medieval Islamic scientific tradition was a vibrant, innovative enterprise whose mathematical and astronomical advances—developed within concrete social and institutional settings—were transmitted to Europe and helped catalyze the Renaissance. By tracing technical continuities from scholars and observatories in places like Maragha and Damascus, including models such as the Tusi couple and Ibn al-Shatir’s planetary schemes, it challenges the narrative of an Islamic decline and a self-contained European breakthrough, emphasizing cross-cultural exchange and transformation.
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2. A History Of Arabic Astronomy
Planetary Theories During the Golden Age of Islam
A concise study of the evolution of planetary theory in the medieval Islamic world, detailing how scholars critiqued and reconstructed Ptolemaic astronomy through sophisticated mathematical models and kinematic devices. It places these innovations within their institutional and intellectual contexts, emphasizing internal scientific motivations over passive transmission. The analysis also traces the channels through which this corpus of work informed the astronomical transformations of early modern Europe.
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