By Bookreviews on 5-2-2009 12:57

By Magda Abu-Fadil Director of Journalism Training Program at the American University of Beirut

 

In his inaugural address, a cosmopolitan and well-traveled President Barack Obama reached out to the Muslim world, acknowledging its presence, influence and contributions to Western society. His gesture was mostly well received by Arabs and Muslims, all too often stereotyped as terrorists, underdeveloped and out to destroy the West. His Western listeners and viewers would do well to read a captivating new book by an American journalist featuring the Arabs' contributions to the sciences and philosophy that helped catapult the West from Medieval and Crusading fundamentalism into "real" civilization. "The House of Wisdom: How the Arabs Transformed Western Civilization" is a 320-page treasure trove of information for the uninitiated that packs a powerful punch of science, history, geography, politics and general knowledge at a time when so much disinformation about the Arab world is swirling around in various media.

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By General on 2/5/2009 11:54 AM

 

IN JULY 1837, Charles Darwin had a flash of inspiration. In his study at his house in London, he turned to a new page in his red leather notebook and wrote, "I think". Then he drew a spindly sketch of a tree. As far as we know, this was the first time Darwin toyed with the concept of a "tree of life" to explain the evolutionary relationships between different species. It was to prove a fruitful idea: by the time he published On The Origin of Species 22 years later, Darwin's spindly tree had grown into a mighty oak. The book contains numerous references to the tree and its only diagram is of a branching structure showing how one species can evolve into many. The affinities of all the beings of the same class have sometimes been represented by a great tree. I believe this simile largely speaks the truth... The tree-of-life concept was absolutely central to Darwin's thinking, equal...

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By General on 2/5/2009 11:52 AM

ONCE upon a time, 4.6 billion years ago, something was brewing in an unremarkable backwater of the Milky Way. The ragbag of stuff that suffuses the inconsequential, in-between bits of all galaxies - hydrogen and helium gas with just a sprinkling of solid dust - had begun to condense and form molecules. Unable to resist its own weight, part of this newly formed molecular cloud collapsed in on itself. In the ensuing heat and confusion, a star was born - our sun. We don't know exactly what kick-started this process. Perhaps, with pleasing symmetry, it was the shock wave from the explosive death throes of a nearby star. It was not, at any rate, a particularly unusual event. It had happened countless times since the Milky Way itself came into existence about 13 billion years ago, and in our telescopes we can see it still going on in distant parts of our galaxy today. As stars go, the sun is nothing out of the ordinary. And yet, as far as we know, it is unique. From a thin disc of stuff left over from its birth,...

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