Dāwid Ben-Šāʾûl Kaṣ Livres

One of the main consequences of recent work in early modern intellectual and religious history has been a discrediting of the notion of a sudden and dramatic transition to the spiritual world of the Enlightenment. Scholars are increasingly examining the underlying spiritual trends and tendencies which confirm the variety and complexity of the slow movement from Renaissance to Enlightenment, and the profound impact of many of the manifestations of intellectual and religious tension during the early modern period. The essays in this volume are a contribution to this process of reappraisal, focusing specifically on the phenomena of scepticism and millenarianism, especially as part of the more pronounced role of the Jews and their culture.

This book is about the principal writings that shaped the perception of Turkey for informed readers in English, from Edward Gibbon’s positing of imperial Decline and Fall to the proclamation of the Turkish Republic (1923), illustrating how Turkey has always been a part of the modern British and European experience. It is a great sweep of a story: from Gibbon as standard textbook, through Lord Bryon the pro-Turkish poet, and Benjamin Disraeli the Romantic novelist of all things Eastern, followed by John Buchan's Greenmantle First World War espionage fantasies, and then Manchester Guardian reporter Arnold Toynbee narrating the fight for Turkish independence.