|
Showing 1 - 9 of
9 matches in All Departments
Modern international business has its origins in the overseas trade
of the Middle Ages. Of the various communities active in trade in
the Islamic countries at that time, records of only the Jewish
community survive. Thousands of documents were preserved in the
Cairo Geniza, a lumber room attached to the synagogue where
discarded writings containing the name of God were deposited to
preserve them from desecration. From them Professor Goitein has
selected eighty letters that provide a fascinating glimpse into the
world of the medieval Jewish traders. As the letters vividly
illustrate, international trade depended on a network of personal
relationships and mutual confidence. Organization was largely
through partnerships, based usually on ties of common religion but
often reinforced by family connections. Sometimes the partners of
Jews were Christians or Muslims, and the letters show these
merchants working together in greater harmony than has been
thought, even in partnerships that lasted through generations. The
services rendered to a friend or partner and those expected from
him were great, and the book opens with an angry letter from a
merchant who believed he had been let down by his friend. The life
of a trader was full of dangers, as the letter describing a
shipwreck illustrates, and put great strain on personal
relationships. One of the most moving letters is that written to
his wife by a man absent in India for many years while endeavoring
to make the family's fortunes. Although never ceasing to love her
and longing to be with her, he offers to divorce her if she feels
she can wait for him no longer. A decisive event in the life of the
great Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides, was the death of his
brother David, who drowned in the Indian Ocean. Printed here is the
last letter David wrote, describing his safe crossing of the desert
and announcing his intention to go on to India, against his
brother's instructions. Professor Goitein has provided an
introduction and notes for each letter, and a general introduction
describing the social and spiritual world of the writers, the
organization of overseas trade in the Middle Ages, and the goods
traded. The letters demonstrate that although it reached from Spain
to India, the traders' world was a cohesive one through which these
men could move freely and always feel at home. Originally published
in 1974. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest
print-on-demand technology to again make available previously
out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton
University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of
these important books while presenting them in durable paperback
and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is
to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in
the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press
since its founding in 1905.
Modern international business has its origins in the overseas trade
of the Middle Ages. Of the various communities active in trade in
the Islamic countries at that time, records of only the Jewish
community survive. Thousands of documents were preserved in the
Cairo Geniza, a lumber room attached to the synagogue where
discarded writings containing the name of God were deposited to
preserve them from desecration. From them Professor Goitein has
selected eighty letters that provide a fascinating glimpse into the
world of the medieval Jewish traders. As the letters vividly
illustrate, international trade depended on a network of personal
relationships and mutual confidence. Organization was largely
through partnerships, based usually on ties of common religion but
often reinforced by family connections. Sometimes the partners of
Jews were Christians or Muslims, and the letters show these
merchants working together in greater harmony than has been
thought, even in partnerships that lasted through generations. The
services rendered to a friend or partner and those expected from
him were great, and the book opens with an angry letter from a
merchant who believed he had been let down by his friend. The life
of a trader was full of dangers, as the letter describing a
shipwreck illustrates, and put great strain on personal
relationships. One of the most moving letters is that written to
his wife by a man absent in India for many years while endeavoring
to make the family's fortunes. Although never ceasing to love her
and longing to be with her, he offers to divorce her if she feels
she can wait for him no longer. A decisive event in the life of the
great Jewish philosopher, Moses Maimonides, was the death of his
brother David, who drowned in the Indian Ocean. Printed here is the
last letter David wrote, describing his safe crossing of the desert
and announcing his intention to go on to India, against his
brother's instructions. Professor Goitein has provided an
introduction and notes for each letter, and a general introduction
describing the social and spiritual world of the writers, the
organization of overseas trade in the Middle Ages, and the goods
traded. The letters demonstrate that although it reached from Spain
to India, the traders' world was a cohesive one through which these
men could move freely and always feel at home. Originally published
in 1974. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest
print-on-demand technology to again make available previously
out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton
University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of
these important books while presenting them in durable paperback
and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is
to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in
the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press
since its founding in 1905.
This six-volume 'portrait of a Mediterranean personality' is a
composite portrait of the individuals who wrote the personal
letters, contracts, and all other manuscript fragments that found
their way into the Cairo Geniza. Most of the fragments from the
Geniza, a storeroom for discarded writings that could not be thrown
away because they might contain the name of God, had been removed
to Cambridge University Library and other libraries around the
world. Professor Goitein devoted the last thirty years of his long
and productive life to their study, deciphering the language of the
documents and organizing what he called a 'marvelous treasure trove
of manuscripts' into a coherent, fascinating picture of the society
that created them. It is a rich, panoramic view of how people
lived, traveled, worshiped, and conducted their economic and social
affairs. The first and second volumes describe the economic
foundations of the society and the institutions and social and
political structures that characterized the community. The
remaining material, intended for a single volume describing the
particulars of the way people lived, blossomed into three volumes,
devoted respectively to the family, daily life, and the individual.
The divisions are arbitrary but helpful because of the wealth of
information. The author refers throughout to other passages in his
monumental work that amplify what is discussed in any particular
section. The result is an incomparably clear and immediate
impression of how it was in the Mediterranean world of the tenth
through the thirteenth century. Volume I, subtitled "Economic
Foundations", gives an overview of the Mediterranean (history,
people, culture) during the high middle ages; discusses the working
class; the business world, and government's role in commerce; and
provides a complete description of travel and seafaring.
This six-volume "portrait of a Mediterranean personality" is a
composite portrait of the individuals who wrote the personal
letters, contracts, and all other manuscript fragments that found
their way into the Cairo Geniza. Most of the fragments from the
Geniza, a storeroom for discarded writings that could not be thrown
away because they might contain the name of God, had been removed
to Cambridge University Library and other libraries around the
world. Professor Goitein devoted the last thirty years of his long
and productive life to their study, deciphering the language of the
documents and organizing what he called a "marvelous treasure trove
of manuscripts" into a coherent, fascinating picture of the society
that created them.
It is a rich, panoramic view of how people lived, traveled,
worshiped, and conducted their economic and social affairs. The
first and second volumes describe the economic foundations of the
society and the institutions and social and political structures
that characterized the community. The remaining material, intended
for a single volume describing the particulars of the way people
lived, blossomed into three volumes, devoted respectively to the
family, daily life, and the individual. The divisions are arbitrary
but helpful because of the wealth of information. The author refers
throughout to other passages in his monumental work that amplify
what is discussed in any particular section. The result is an
incomparably clear and immediate impression of how it was in the
Mediterranean world of the tenth through the thirteenth century.
Volume V, subtitled "The Individual," draws a portrait of the
individual--a social person who mingled within the community;
addressed the challenges of poverty, illness, aging, and death;
possessed friends, enemies, and lovers; prayed and responded within
a religious community; learned, created, thought and taught.
This six-volume 'portrait of a Mediterranean personality' is a
composite portrait of the individuals who wrote the personal
letters, contracts, and all other manuscript fragments that found
their way into the Cairo Geniza. Most of the fragments from the
Geniza, a storeroom for discarded writings that could not be thrown
away because they might contain the name of God, had been removed
to Cambridge University Library and other libraries around the
world. Professor Goitein devoted the last thirty years of his long
and productive life to their study, deciphering the language of the
documents and organizing what he called a 'marvelous treasure trove
of manuscripts' into a coherent, fascinating picture of the society
that created them. It is a rich, panoramic view of how people
lived, traveled, worshiped, and conducted their economic and social
affairs. The first and second volumes describe the economic
foundations of the society and the institutions and social and
political structures that characterized the community. The
remaining material, intended for a single volume describing the
particulars of the way people lived, blossomed into three volumes,
devoted respectively to the family, daily life, and the individual.
The divisions are arbitrary but helpful because of the wealth of
information. The author refers throughout to other passages in his
monumental work that amplify what is discussed in any particular
section. The result is an incomparably clear and immediate
impression of how it was in the Mediterranean world of the tenth
through the thirteenth century. Volume IV, subtitled "Daily Life",
details city life, domestic architecture, furnishings and
housewares, clothing and jewelry, food and drink, and other
material culture.
S. D. Goitein's magisterial five-volume work on Jewish communities
in the medieval Mediterranean world offers an unparalleled view of
how people lived, traveled, worshiped, and conducted their economic
and social affairs. Living under Muslim rule, the Jews became
increasingly urbanized and played a significant part in an
expanding world economy. As major actors in the flourishing
intellectual life of the period, they forged much of what
constitutes traditional Judaism today and served as a conduit of
Islamic learning to the Christian West. Goitein's masterpiece is
now abridged and reworked by Jacob Lassner in a single volume that
captures the essential narratives and contexts of the original. To
understand the value of this distillation, we need to picture the
remarkable, all-but-impenetrable cache of unique letters and
documents found by accident in a geniza, or repository of sacred
writings, in Old Cairo. These materials, unlike historical
chronicles and literary texts of the time, represent the living
experiences of people in a wide variety of settings throughout the
entire Mediterranean and stretching as far east as the Indian
subcontinent. Goitein explored and interpreted these texts as no
other scholar had. Lassner, in turn, makes Goitein's findings
available to a wide audience and then moves on to raise a host of
new and tantalizing questions about the Jews of the Geniza and the
relationship of their community to the hegemonic Muslim society.
This six-volume 'portrait of a Mediterranean personality' is a
composite portrait of the individuals who wrote the personal
letters, contracts, and all other manuscript fragments that found
their way into the Cairo Geniza. Most of the fragments from the
Geniza, a storeroom for discarded writings that could not be thrown
away because they might contain the name of God, had been removed
to Cambridge University Library and other libraries around the
world. Professor Goitein devoted the last thirty years of his long
and productive life to their study, deciphering the language of the
documents and organizing what he called a 'marvelous treasure trove
of manuscripts' into a coherent, fascinating picture of the society
that created them. It is a rich, panoramic view of how people
lived, traveled, worshiped, and conducted their economic and social
affairs. The first and second volumes describe the economic
foundations of the society and the institutions and social and
political structures that characterized the community. The
remaining material, intended for a single volume describing the
particulars of the way people lived, blossomed into three volumes,
devoted respectively to the family, daily life, and the individual.
The divisions are arbitrary but helpful because of the wealth of
information. The author refers throughout to other passages in his
monumental work that amplify what is discussed in any particular
section. The result is an incomparably clear and immediate
impression of how it was in the Mediterranean world of the tenth
through the thirteenth century. Volume VI, prepared by Paula
Sanders, is a volume of cumulative, analytical indices.
This six-volume "portrait of a Mediterranean personality" is a
composite portrait of the individuals who wrote the personal
letters, contracts, and all other manuscript fragments that found
their way into the Cairo Geniza. Most of the fragments from the
Geniza, a storeroom for discarded writings that could not be thrown
away because they might contain the name of God, had been removed
to Cambridge University Library and other libraries around the
world. Professor Goitein devoted the last thirty years of his long
and productive life to their study, deciphering the language of the
documents and organizing what he called a "marvelous treasure trove
of manuscripts" into a coherent, fascinating picture of the society
that created them. It is a rich, panoramic view of how people
lived, traveled, worshiped, and conducted their economic and social
affairs. The first and second volumes describe the economic
foundations of the society and the institutions and social and
political structures that characterized the community. The
remaining material, intended for a single volume describing the
particulars of the way people lived, blossomed into three volumes,
devoted respectively to the family, daily life, and the individual.
The divisions are arbitrary but helpful because of the wealth of
information. The author refers throughout to other passages in his
monumental work that amplify what is discussed in any particular
section. The result is an incomparably clear and immediate
impression of how it was in the Mediterranean world of the tenth
through the thirteenth century. Volume II, subtitled The Community,
explores the nature of medieval religious democracy, including
discussion of the community, social services, local government,
worship, education, interfaith relations, relations between
religion and the state, and the relations between the communities
and the state.
This six-volume 'portrait of a Mediterranean personality' is a
composite portrait of the individuals who wrote the personal
letters, contracts, and all other manuscript fragments that found
their way into the Cairo Geniza. Most of the fragments from the
Geniza, a storeroom for discarded writings that could not be thrown
away because they might contain the name of God, had been removed
to Cambridge University Library and other libraries around the
world. Professor Goitein devoted the last thirty years of his long
and productive life to their study, deciphering the language of the
documents and organizing what he called a 'marvelous treasure trove
of manuscripts' into a coherent, fascinating picture of the society
that created them. It is a rich, panoramic view of how people
lived, traveled, worshiped, and conducted their economic and social
affairs. The first and second volumes describe the economic
foundations of the society and the institutions and social and
political structures that characterized the community. The
remaining material, intended for a single volume describing the
particulars of the way people lived, blossomed into three volumes,
devoted respectively to the family, daily life, and the individual.
The divisions are arbitrary but helpful because of the wealth of
information. The author refers throughout to other passages in his
monumental work that amplify what is discussed in any particular
section. The result is an incomparably clear and immediate
impression of how it was in the Mediterranean world of the tenth
through the thirteenth century. Volume III, subtitled "The Family",
reveals the Mediterranean family - the extended family, marriage
(rituals, economics, social and cultural safeguards), the
Mediterranean household, widowhood, divorce, remarriage, and the
world of women.
|
|