Reviews for Learning Arabic in Renaissance Europe (Brill's Studies in Intellectual History)

The average rating for Learning Arabic in Renaissance Europe (Brill's Studies in Intellectual History) based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2013-07-21 00:00:00 Brent Sharpe Steven Speilberg was right all along, the allies knew about the holocaust being perpetrated by the Nazis but deliberately ignored it. This book givens in painstaking detail the news of the mass murder being passed on to allied hands during the war by several individuals, bystanders, survivors, witnesses, death camp escapees, consulate officials and several others who in their own bit tried to pass on whatever info they could to the allies in the vain hope that something would be done to stop the killings. They probably hoped that the genocide could be exposed to the allies with the result that it could be stopped altogether. Alas, none of it happened, all news of atrocities received by the Allies was debunked, deliberately shoved under the carpet, ignored, not passed on, labeled as figments of imagination. Many of these came from official channels in Europe and news media. I was shocked to learn that other than the more famous testimonials of persons such as Rudolph Verba there were hundreds of others who risked their lives to pass on the info and got nothing in return, sadly not even a token of empathy and an acknowledgement from the Allies that mass murder was being planned and implemented across Europe and Russia. Allied decision not to bomb the rail lines to Aushwitz is a case in point. The holocaust was officially acknowledged with media being allowed to post images of holocaust on the front pages after the British liberated Bergen Belsen and Americans the Dachau concentration camp. This is a disturbing book, it reveals the killing statistics and news of genocide in a matter of fact tone. The sad outcome is that the British and Americans knew about the holocaust from the initial stages of war itself but simply kept quiet. President Roosevelt did make an ultimatum like appeal to the Germans to stop the Hungarian Jew’s deportations but that was it. If I may quote from Schindler’s list, “Whoever saves one life saves the World entire”. The fact of the matter is that they could have saved Jewish lives…but they decided not to.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-04-24 00:00:00 Michael Garcia I had never been exposed to any Schenkerian analysis in my undergrad, but this book was a very palatable introduction to it.