The barber of Damascus : nouveau literacy in the eighteenth-century Ottoman Levant

Summary: Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad Ibn Budayr shaved and coiffed, and probably circumcised and healed, in Damascus in the eighteenth century. The barber wrote a history book, a chronicle of the events that took place in his city during his lifetime. Examining the 'life and work' of Ibn Budayr, the book uncovers the emergence of a larger trend of history writing by unusual authors - people outside the learned establishment - and identifies a new phenomenon: nouveau literacy. The book also discusses the social and literary aspects of nouveau literacy within the context of a changing social, political, and urban topography in the eighteenth-century Levant.

Record details

ISBN: 0804788286
ISBN: 9780804788281
Physical Description: 1 online resource (xv, 293 pages) : illustrations, maps
remote
Publisher: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2013.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	The disorders of a new order : the Levant in the long 18th-century -- A barber at the gate : a social and intellectual biography -- "Cheap" monumentality : the nouveau literates and their texts -- Authority and history : the genealogy of the Levantine 18th-century contemporary chronicle -- A room of his own : the "history" of the barber of Damascus -- Cutting the barber's tale : the afterlives of a history -- Conclusion : from nouveau literacy to print journalism.
Restrictions on Access Note:	NLC staff and students only.
Source of Description Note:	Print version record.