Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Lucid and elegantly written, Ussama Makdisi's Artillery of Heaven accomplishes two big things. First, while examining 19th century American missionary encounters in the Arab Ottoman territories, it presents a model for a new kind of transnational history that sheds light on American engagement with the world. Second, and at a time when much of the Arab past has been "effectively demarcated ... as a forbidden no-man's land" because of fear of what "divisive narratives" of the past may dredge up (p. 219), it scrutinizes the raw history of the "multi-religious world" in the Ottoman region that is now Lebanon.
DOI: 10.48659/9m3p-jx07
Author: Sharkey, Heather
Institution: University of Pennsylvania
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2180133025