S. Frederick Starr

Please join us when historian S. Frederick Starr returns to Octavia Books to present and sign his new book, Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane.

In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds--remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia--drawn from the Persianate and Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, and from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China.

Lost Enlightenment recounts how, between the years 800 and 1200, Central Asia led the world in trade and economic development, the size and sophistication of its cities, the refinement of its arts, and, above all, in the advancement of knowledge in many fields. Central Asians achieved signal breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, geology, medicine, chemistry, music, social science, philosophy, and theology, among other subjects. They gave algebra its name, calculated the earth's diameter with unprecedented precision, wrote the books that later defined European medicine, and penned some of the world's greatest poetry. One scholar, working in Afghanistan, even predicted the existence of North and South America--five centuries before Columbus. Rarely in history has a more impressive group of polymaths appeared at one place and time. No wonder that their writings influenced European culture from the time of St. Thomas Aquinas down to the scientific revolution, and had a similarly deep impact in India and much of Asia.

Lost Enlightenment chronicles this forgotten age of achievement, seeks to explain its rise, and explores the competing theories about the cause of its eventual demise. Informed by the latest scholarship yet written in a lively and accessible style, this is a book that will surprise general readers and specialists alike.

We a pleased to have the World Affiars Council of New Orleans as a co-sponsor of this event.

S. Frederick Starr is founding chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, a research and policy center affiliated with the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the Institute for Security and Development Policy in Stockholm. A past president of Oberlin College and the Aspen Institute, he began his career in classical archaeology, excavating at Gordium in modern Turkey and mapping the Persian Royal Road.

Location: Street: 513 Octavia St City: New Orleans, Province: Louisiana Postal Code: 70115-2055 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Please join us when historian S. Frederick Starr presents and signs his new book, Une Belle Maison: The Lombard Plantation House in New Orleans's Bywater, an extraordinary look at the life, decay, and restoration of a plantation home inside New Orleans.

This book brings together artist John James Audubon; architect of the U.S. capital, Benjamin Henry Latrobe; Lee Harvey Oswald; and Fats Domino in an engrossing story, linking these and other colorful figures to the history of a beautiful, historic home in New Orleans.

The Lombard plantation house is a rare survivor. Built in the early nineteenth century as a West Indianstyle residence, it was the focal point of a large plantation that stretched deep into the cypress swamps of what is now New Orleans's Bywater nieghborhood. Featuring the best Norman trussing in North America, it was one of many plantation homes and grand residences that lined the Mississippi downriver from the French Quarter. A working farm until the 1800s, its lands were eventually absorbed into the expanding city. After years of prosperity, the entire area of the Ninth Ward, now known as Bywater, sank into poverty and neglect.

This is the story of the rise, fall, and eventual resurrection of one of America's finest extant examples of West Indian Creole architecture and of the entire neighborhood of which it is an anchor. Through meticulous study of archives and archeology, the author presents fascinating insights on how residents of this working plantation actually lived. Because pre-Civil War U.S. censuses never listed more than five enslaved persons, all of whom worked in the house, the plantation appears to have depended mainly on hired labor, both African American and Irish. Eventually these groups came to populate the new neighborhood, along with immigrants from Germany, and then new migrants from the countryside.

Profusely illustrated with heretofore unidentified historic photographs and plans, and with color images by master architectural photographer Robert S. Brantley, this book will equally interest inquisitive tourists and long-term residents of the Gulf South, historic preservationists and urbanists in search of insights on successful redevelopment, architecture and history buffs, and enthusiasts of one of America's most beloved and storied cities. S. Frederick Starr, Washington, D.C., is chair of the Central AsiaCaucasus Institute at John Hopkins University. He is the author of numerous books on New Orleans, including New Orleans Unmasqued and Louis Moreau Gottschalk. He edited Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn.

Location: Street: 513 Octavia St City: New Orleans, Province: Louisiana Postal Code: 70115-2055 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)