Robert Irwin
In the Land of the Waqwaq Tree
Wonders and Rarities: The Marvelous Book That Traveled the World and Mapped the Cosmos
By Travis Zadeh
Harvard University Press 464pp £34.95
Travis Zadeh’s Wonders and Rarities is a wide-ranging and enchanting study of Zakariyya’ al-Qazwini, a 13th-century Iranian cosmographer and geographer. Zadeh acknowledges numerous scholars at the back of the book and concludes with a note about his own inspirational visits to India, where the Western Ghats have been a source of rejuvenation, where wisps of cloud rise up over the valley across the towering table land, surrounded by mangoes, bananas, and jackfruit, with parrots and langurs among the fronds. The monsoon brings a remarkable peace, if at times sorrow, with its steady rain … But now, many miles removed, so much of it seems but an intangible dream from some distant land.
The acknowledgements are preceded by sixty-two pages of small-print bibliographic notes. These include references to such choice scholarly articles and books as ‘The Ear-Sleepers. Some Permutations of a Traveler’s Tale’, ‘Scottish Freemasonry in Ottoman Izmir’, ‘Did Alexander the Great Discover America?’ and Early Tantric Medicine. The notes are a wonder in themselves. How can any man have read so much?
Al-Qazwini, who was born in Qazvin in what is now Iran and served as a qadi in Wasit, Iraq, was famous throughout the Islamic world for two works, a topography, Athar al-bilad (‘Monuments of Places’), and a cosmography, Aja’ib al-makhluqat wa ghar’ib al-mawjudat (‘Wonders of Creation and Rarities of
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
It is a triumph @arthistorynews and my review @Lit_Review is here!
In just thirteen years, George Villiers rose from plain squire to become the only duke in England and the most powerful politician in the land. Does a new biography finally unravel the secrets of his success?
John Adamson investigates.
John Adamson - Love Island with Ruffs
John Adamson: Love Island with Ruffs - The Scapegoat: The Brilliant Brief Life of the Duke of Buckingham by Lucy Hughes-Hallett
literaryreview.co.uk
During the 1930s, Winston Churchill retired to Chartwell, his Tudor-style country house in Kent, where he plotted a return to power.
Richard Vinen asks whether it’s time to rename the decade long regarded as Churchill’s ‘wilderness years’.
Richard Vinen - Croquet & Conspiracy
Richard Vinen: Croquet & Conspiracy - Churchill’s Citadel: Chartwell and the Gatherings Before the Storm by Katherine Carter
literaryreview.co.uk