Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry - Revised Edition

This book is an essential reference for anyone with interest in doing any type of study in the history of Islam from 600-1500. Humphreys hasn't written yet another drab, stale survey book; rather, he compiled something immensely more useful. He has created a veritable inventory of scholarship, not coarsely comprehensive but pleasantly judicious, and accompanied it with a running commentary that places each work on the larger grid of modern scholarship on the subject as well and extrapolation of the various challenges realting thereto. In this way, it facilitates a critical yet broad engagement with the important scholarship hitherto written in the field helping us to refine, reconsider, and reshape the direction of future scholarship. Also, this work serves as an accessible point of entry for historians who specialize in areas other than Islamic history whom I trust will also find in plenty helpful.