As I've been reading the early chapters of "Lust for Knowing", about the reintroduction of Aristotle to the West with the translation from Arabic of commentries written by figures such as Averroes and Avicenna, I've been struck yet again by how deeply tangled world culture is, and how flawed the idea of an eternal "clash of civilisations" is.
Because, of course, if the Greeks hadn't defeated the Persians at Thermopylae, Salamis and Plataea, there wouldn't have been an Aristotle to cast such a long shadow over both Islam and Christianity.
Monday, February 20, 2006
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