Europe and the Islamic world : a history / John Tolan, Gilles Veinstein, and Henry Laurens ; translated by Jane Marie Todd with a foreword by John L. Esposito.

Henry Laurens's name appears first on the original French edition.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 439-444) and index.

Foreword / John L. Esposito -- General introduction -- Part I : Saracens and Ifranj : rivalries, emulation, and convergences / John Tolan. The geographers' world : from Arabia Felix to the Balad al-Ifranj (land of the Franks) ; Conquest and its justifications : jihad, crusade, Reconquista ; The social inferiority of religious minorities : Dhimmis and Mudejars ; In search of Egyptian gold : traders in the Mediterranean ; On the shoulders of giants : transmission and exchange of knowledge -- Part II : The great Turk and Europe / Gilles Veinstein. Introduction to Part II : continuity and change in geopolitics ; The Ottoman conquest in Europe ; Ottoman Europe : an ancient fracture ; Antagonistic figures ; The Islamic-Christian border in Europe ; Breaches in the Conflict -- Part III : Europe and the Muslim world in the contemporary period / Henry Laurens. The eighteenth century as turning point ; Civilization or conquest? ; The age of reform ; The age of empire ; The first blows to European domination ; The Great War and the beginning of emancipation ; Contemporary issues.

"Europe and the Islamic World sheds much-needed light on the shared roots of Islamic and Western cultures and on the richness of their inextricably intertwined histories, refuting once and for all the misguided notion of a "clash of civilizations" between the Muslim world and Europe. In this landmark book, three eminent historians bring to life the complex and tumultuous relations between Genoans and Tunisians, Alexandrians and the people of Constantinople, Catalans and Maghrebis--the myriad groups and individuals whose stories reflect the common cultural, intellectual, and religious heritage of Europe and Islam. Since the seventh century, when the armies of Constantinople and Medina fought for control of Syria and Palestine, there has been ongoing contact between the Muslim world and the West. This sweeping history vividly recounts the wars and the crusades, the alliances and diplomacy, commerce and the slave trade, technology transfers, and the intellectual and artistic exchanges. Here readers are given an unparalleled introduction to key periods and events, including the Muslim conquests, the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, the commercial revolution of the medieval Mediterranean, the intellectual and cultural achievements of Muslim Spain, the crusades and Spanish reconquest, the rise of the Ottomans and their conquest of a third of Europe, European colonization and decolonization, and the challenges and promise of this entwined legacy today. As provocative as it is groundbreaking, this book describes this shared history in all its richness and diversity, revealing how ongoing encounters between Europe and Islam have profoundly shaped both."--Publisher description.