Europes Debt to Persia : Religion, Philosophy, Astronomy, Mathematics, Medicine and the Sciences.

Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Chapter 1 The Rise of the Achaemenian Empire: King Cyrus the Great, Humanist Persian King and Saviour of Europe's Jewish Heritage -- Chapter 2 King Darius I (522-486 bce), King Xerxes I (486-465 bce), King Artaxerxes I (465-424 bce), King Artaxerxes II (404-359 bce): The Controversy of 'Persian Tyranny' and 'Athenian Democracy' -- Chapter 3 The Influence of Persian Aristocratic Life and Manners on the Golden Age of Athens -- Chapter 4 The Marriage of Greece and Persia: Alexander's Conquest of the Persian Empire - A Formidable Plan of Alexander's Tutor, Aristotle, to Hellenize the Entire Known World -- Chapter 5 The Rise of the Parthian Empire: The Union of Zoroastrian and Hellenic Religious and Scientific Thought -- Chapter 6 The Rise of the Sasanian Empire: King Anushirvan, Persian Renaissance King, Instigator of the First Great Translation Movement and Saviour of Europe's Greek Intellectual and Scientific Heritage -- Chapter 7 The Retreat of Greek Philosophy and Science in Medieval Europe and their Advancement in Persia -- Chapter 8 The Rise of Islam: The Conquest of the Hellenophile Sasanian Empire and the Christian Byzantine Empire by the Umayyad Caliphs -- Chapter 9 The Rise of the Persian-inspired Abbasid Empire: Baghdad's Monumental Translation Movement and Scientific Enterprise and its Debt to Persia's Hellenophile Academy of Jundishapur -- Chapter 10 Farabi, the Great Persian Philosopher, Logician, Theoretician of Music and Classifier of Graeco-Persian Philosophy and Science, who Restored Plato and Aristotle to their Athenian Prominence -- Chapter 11 Avicenna, the Great Persian Physician and Metaphysician who Revolutionized Aristotle's Metaphysics and Laid the Foundation for the Age of Reason.

Chapter 12 'Arabian' or Graeco-Persian Medicine: Jundishapur Academy's Medical School, Teaching Hospital and Pharmacy, Fountainhead of Europe's Renaissance Medicine -- Chapter 13 Rhazes and Avicenna: Persian Founders of Europe's Renaissance Medicine, Pharmacology and Chemistry -- Chapter 14 Kharazmi, the Father of Europe's Renaissance Algebra and of the Decimal System, and Kuhi, Buzjani, Biruni, Khujandi, Mahani, Karaji, Khayyam, Tusi, the Fathers of Europe's Renaissance Analytical Algebraic Geometry and Plane and Spherical Trigonometry -- Chapter 15 Kharazmi, Farghani, Neyrizi, Balkhi, Kuhi, Sufi, Buzjani, Biruni, Khujandi: Persian Founders of Europe's Renaissance Empirical Observational Astronomy -- Chapter 16 The Perilous Path from the Reception at Oxford University of Kharazmi's Algebra and Planetary Tables, Farghani's The Compendium of Astronomy and the Persian-inspired Toledan and Alfonsine Tables to Copernicus's De Revolutionibus -- Chapter 17 Invasions from the Steppe-lands: The Rise of the Seljuk and Timurid Empires in Persia and the Fate of the Graeco-Persian Academies and their Sciences -- Chapter 18 Khayyam: Persian Philosopher, Observational Astronomer, Algebraist and Analytical Geometer, whose Advanced Cubic Equations and Non-Eudoxian, Non-Euclidean Geometry Crucially Influenced the Mathematics and Metaphysics of Descartes, Pascal and Leibniz -- Chapter 19 Tusi, the Father of Trigonometry, whose Planetary Diagrams and Tables, Spherical Trigonometric Techniques and Observational Instruments Copernicus, Brahe and Kepler Used to Revoke Ptolemy's Alexandrian Theory of a Static Earth as the Centre of the Universe, Around Which the Sun and the Planets Revolve.

Chapter 20 Kashi: Persian Discoverer of the Successive Numerical Approximation System, the Decimal Fraction, the Value p and Inventor of Planetary Integral Calculus, whose Innovations Influenced the Algebraic Methods of Tartaglia, Regiomontanus, Viète and Descartes, Forerunners of Sir Isaac Newton -- Chapter 21 Biruni, Karaji, Khazini: Persian Pioneering Forebears of European Enlightenment Analytical Algebra, Experimental Physics, Hydraulics and the Mechanical Sciences -- Chapter 22 Kharazmi, Khurradadbeh, Balkhi, Estakhri, Biruni: Persian Trigonometric Geographers and Cartographers whose Empirical Regional and World Maps Exerted a Lasting Influence on Renaissance Cartography -- Chapter 23 The Renaissance of Classical Persian, Greek and Alexandrian Knowledge: Three Great Graeco-Persian Translation Movements -- Chapter 24 The Opening of the First European Universities and the Birth of Modern Philosophy, Astronomy, Mathematics, Medicine, Pharmacology, Chemistry and Physics (1170-1500 ce) -- Chapter 25 Europe's Debt to Persia: Summa (546 bce-1807 ce) -- Bibliography -- Names -- Chronology of Empires -- Guide to Maps -- Index.

Europe's Debt to Persia from Ancient to Modern Times provides a fresh scholarly perspective on how over the centuries Persian kings and noblemen protected and sponsored the religious and intellectual heritage of both Judea and Greece alongside that of Persia itself. Minou Reeves makes available for the first time portraits of the life, upbringing, education and works of generations of ardently Hellenophile Persian thinkers and scientists, and demonstrates the pivotal influence they exerted on the works of the emerging European Renaissance and Enlightenment. The book covers the period between 546 BC and 1807 AD. It begins with the conquest of Ionian Greece by Persia when, it is argued, the thinking of Zoroastre, the great ethical monotheist, natural philosopher and Prophet of Persian Antiquity, influenced and became fused in the ensuing centuries with that of Greece's great philosophers and scientists, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The year 1807 AD is the year of the publication of Friedrich Hegel's Phenomenology of the Mind, inspired by the ethical monotheism of Zoroastre and Plato, the De Anima of Aristotle and On The Rational Soul of the Persian philosopher Avicenna. Minou Reeves challenges established ideas about the relationship between Persia and Greece as she argues that, contrary to received wisdom, Persia and Greece were not at odds with one another but were rather intertwined, and exercised a profound influence on one another's cultural, aesthetic, philosophical and scientific thought. Using original documentation in several European languages, Reeves presents the case for the intellectual marriage of Persia and Greece, and for this fusion to have formed the basis of the European Renaissance and Enlightenment.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.