The Venture of Islam, Volume 1: The Classical Age of Islam [Paperback]

As other reviewers have pointed out, Hodgson is not always an easy read. His style is dense and ponderous. Nontheless, Hodgson's work was a milestone in Western scholarship about Islam and its history. He provides a wealth of information and a thorough, coherent account of the development of Islamic civilization. Unlike many books, Hodgson pays attention not just to political entities and dynasties, but also to the intellectual and artistic achievements of the societies.

Islam and things Islamic have been sorely neglected in most people's education. Even in our current post-9/11 climate, what most people know about Islam doesn't extend much beyond stereotypical (and largely inaccurate) ideas about jihad. If they're really sophisticated, they may know a little about Sufism and the mystical poetry of Rumi. But there is so much more to Islam and to Islamic civilization (if in fact one can even talk about a single Islamic civilazation). Whatever this books flaws, one could do far worse to start one's education here.

I kept my xeroxed for many years after I finished my coursework. But I finally lost them, and now I'm replacing them with the real books.

Throughout Hodgson's rather phlegmatic march through the history of the central Islamic lands (being Muslim Spain, North Africa, and the lands from the Nile to the Oxus River), there is undoubtedly a dusty quality to his work that shows his methodology to be at least a generation behind the times. It is evident that he was influenced strong by the rise and fall of civilizations world history of the likes of Toynbee, and there is some indication that were it not for his untimely death that he would have wished to write just such a history. Though this is a weakness in part of his work-weak because its broad strokes necessitates a glossing over many technical and philosophical issues (the devil and often the more interesting question are in the details)-it did at it time overcome many of the faults of Orientalist scholarship of and prior to his time by integrating Islamic history in the broader streams of human civilization with antecedents and inherited legacies rather than the usual misrepresentation of Islamic civilization as sui generis.

I still recommend Lapidus over Hodgson because Lapidus is more up to date, a single volume and bibliographically also more recent, although Hodgson's work has more style and continuity and coheres better than Lapidus's disjointed text.

Of the three volumes, Volume III is largely out-dated, while Volume II has held up the best since the work's publication. Perhaps the most serious problem is that Hodgson doesn't pay much attention to the development of Islamic societies in Southeast Asia and Africa, though he does include India, a major step for the 1970's. His chapters on Sufism and literary culture are among the work's strengths.

Those interested in a serious understanding of the Islamic world will work through Hodgson at one time or another. Those wishing for a strong, more casual introduction are better off with something like Ira Lapidus's A History of Islamic Societies or The Oxford History of Islam.