The Red Sea
In Search of Lost Space
Format:Paperback
Publisher:University of California Press
Published:23rd Feb '16
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
The Red Sea has, from time immemorial, been one of the world's most navigated spaces, in the pursuit of trade, pilgrimage and conquest. Yet this multidimensional history remains largely unrevealed by its successive protagonists. Intrigued by the absence of a holistic portrayal of this body of water and inspired by Fernand Braudel's famous work on the Mediterranean, this book brings alive a dynamic Red Sea world across time, revealing the particular features of a unique historical actor. In capturing this heretofore lost space, it also presents a critical, conceptual history of the sea, leading the reader into the heart of Eurocentrism. The Sea, it is shown, is a vital element of the modern philosophy of history. Alexis Wick is not satisfied with this inclusion of the Red Sea into history and attendant critique of Eurocentrism. Contrapuntally, he explores how the world and the sea were imagined differently before imperial European hegemony. Searching for the lost space of Ottoman visions of the sea, The Red Sea makes a deeper argument about the discipline of history and the historian's craft.
"Scholars will appreciate the richness of the argument..." -- J.C. Perry Choice "Valuable... an enlightening read." Mada Masr "...a rich and erudite work..." -- Akram Belkaid Le Monde Diplomatique "A substantial and relatively groundbreaking piece of work with a sharp understanding of how geography is anchored in History with a capital H, and vice versa. Wick's determined appeal for his readers to see both the Red Sea as a product of European design as well as space more generally as a host of discursively constituted and lived places and landscapes, each with a poetics, a history, and a sense of its own is absolutely refreshing, to say nothing of its necessity." AAG Review of Books "Sophisticated and erudite...a very important work." New Perspectives on Turkey
ISBN: 9780520285927
Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 20mm
Weight: 408g
280 pages