This book narrates the extraordinary growth in the study of Arabic in England from the late sixteenth century, when it was almost non-existent, to the end of the seventeenth. By its high point around 1666, England was pre-eminent among European countries in the study of Arabic. Permanent Chairs of Arabic had been established at Oxford and Cambridge, and specialized presses in Oxford and London had produced Arabic works. The Professor at Oxford, Edward Pococke, was recognized as the foremost scholar in the field in Europe, and a great collection of Arabic manuscripts, begun by Archbishop Laud, was being built up at Oxford. In this masterly and original study, Professor Toomer gives the first detailed account of this process, set against the religious and political background in England and Europe. He shows how trade with the Ottoman Empire and mistrust of Islam influenced the study of Arabic. Finally, he traces the course and causes of the drastic decline in Arabic studies towards the end of the century.

This publication would not have been what it is without the help of many institutions and people, which I acknowledge most gratefully. I thank the Central Library and Documentation Center, Iran, and its director, Mr. Iraji Afshar, for permission to publish photo graphs of that part of ms. 392 of the Shrine Library, Meshhed, containing Diocles' treatise. I also thank the authorities of the Shrine Library, and especially Mr. Ahmad GolchTn-Ma'anT, for their cooperation in providing photographs of the manuscript. Mr. GolchTn Ma'anT also sent me, most generously, a copy of his catalogue of the astronomical and mathematical manuscripts of the Shrine Library. I am grateful to the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, and the Universiteits-Bibliotheek, Leid'en, for providing me with microfilms of manuscripts I wished to consult, and to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, for granting me access to its manuscripts. The text pages in Arabic script and the Index of Technical Terms were set by a computer-assisted phototypesetting system, using computer programs developed at the University of Washington and a high-speed image-generation phototypesetting device. A continuous stream of text on punched cards was fed through the Katib formatting program, which broke up the text into lines and pages and arranged the section numbers and apparatus on each page. Output from Katib was fed through the compositor program Hattat to create a magnetic tape for use on the VideoComp phototypesetter."

Ptolemy's "Almagest" is one of the most influential scientific works in history. A masterpiece of technical exposition, it was the basic textbook of astronomy for more than a thousand years, and still is the main source for our knowledge of ancient astronomy. This translation, based on the standard Greek text of Heiberg, makes the work accessible to English readers in an intelligible and reliable form. It contains numerous corrections derived from medieval Arabic translations and extensive footnotes that take account of the great progress in understanding the work made in this century, due to the discovery of Babylonian records and other researches. It is designed to stand by itself as an interpretation of the original, but it will also be useful as an aid to reading the Greek text.

Professor Toomer's book is not only an indispensable reference work but also provides the first thorough treatment of the scholarship of John Selden, acknowledged as the most learned man of 17th-century England. All of his numerous published works, especially in the fields of history, law, and Hebraica, are critically examined and described in detail. The narrative also relates his writings to contemporary events, in the Civil War and the parliaments (including the Long Parliament) in which he played a prominent part, and to the work of other scholars in Europe (notably Scaliger and Grotius) and in Britain (including Camden and Ussher). Selden's involvement with the Universities, the support of libraries, and the promotion of scholarship is discussed. The work will be an essential resource, not only for the life of a major figure of his time, but also for the intellectual history of 17th-century England in general.