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Venture of Islam #3
The Venture of Islam, Vol 3: The Gunpowder Empires and Modern Times
The Venture of Islam has been honored as a magisterial work of the mind since its publication in early 1975. In this three-volume study, illustrated with charts and maps, Hodgson traces and interprets the historical development of Islamic civilization from before the birth of Muhammad to the middle of the twentieth century. This work grew out of the famous course on Islamic civilization that Hodgson created and taught for many years at the University of Chicago.
In this concluding volume of The Venture of Islam , Hodgson describes the second flowering of the Safavi, Timuri, and Ottoman empires. The final part of the volume analyzes the widespread Islamic heritage in today's world.
"This is a nonpareil work, not only because of its command of its subject but also because it demonstrates how, ideally, history should be written."— The New Yorker
In this concluding volume of The Venture of Islam , Hodgson describes the second flowering of the Safavi, Timuri, and Ottoman empires. The final part of the volume analyzes the widespread Islamic heritage in today's world.
"This is a nonpareil work, not only because of its command of its subject but also because it demonstrates how, ideally, history should be written."— The New Yorker
476 pages, Paperback
First published December 31, 1974
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1499 people want to read
About the author
Marshall G.S. Hodgson
18 books78 followersMarshall Goodwin Simms Hodgson was an Islamic studies academic and a world historian at the University of Chicago. He was chairman of the interdisciplinary Committee on Social Thought in Chicago.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
August 24, 2021
من أهم أجزاء الكتاب لما له من تعلق بكيفية تشكل عالمنا الحديث وتحدي الحضارة الإسلاماتية أمام الحداثة الأوروبية وكيف شكلت إمبراطوريات البارود الإسلامية امتدادًا قويًا لإسلام العصور الوسطى قبل أن تتحلل عراه وتتغلل الحداثة الأوروبية داخل بينة النظم الإسلامية المفككة من تلك الكيانات الكبرى.
September 30, 2020
Marshall Hodgson, wrote his vision of Islam and its importance for 1500 years, especially from Nile to Oxus region, as he said "the future core of Islamdom".
the main Idea that Hodgson discussed in the 3 parts, that Islam is part of world civilization and the spot of modern history.
The Venture of Islam is a great work and its details are extremely necessary, so you can read the follow article to get more knowledge about the book.
https://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.or...
the main Idea that Hodgson discussed in the 3 parts, that Islam is part of world civilization and the spot of modern history.
The Venture of Islam is a great work and its details are extremely necessary, so you can read the follow article to get more knowledge about the book.
https://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.or...
June 12, 2024
Today, I've finally finished the last and final part of "The Venture Of Islam" and successfully can't get over it! Drug for my broken soul... Alhamdulillah!🌻
◾First Volume-
We can consider the great and wonderful work “The Adventure of Islam” as a comprehensive record of all eras and regions of Islamic history, concerned with the history of consciousness and conscience and the movement of cultural traditions and their social positions. It looks at the Islamic civilization, which Hodgson refers to as “Islamism,” as woven within global dimensions, and with this vision, Hodgson constitutes a break with the traditional Orientalist heritage, although Hodgson will intersect with it, as we will see on some issues. However, what distinguished Hodgson’s vision was his rejection of the fundamental approaches towards Islam, and from here he formulates his approach and establishes the edifice of his new terminology in his view of Islamic civilization in the introduction to his huge book, which reached two hundred. Page, and this introduction is the key to the book as a whole, as through it Hodgson set out to purge the Orientalist field of words and terms borrowed from European history, which revolve around the idea of Eurocentrism. Overwhelmed...
◾Second Volume-
A very important part about the Islamic heritage in the Middle Ages, even though it gives a major role to Sufism in the Islamic history movement in the Middle Ages. Perfectly categorized!
◾Third Volume-
It is one of the most important parts of the book because it relates to how our modern world was formed and the challenge of Islamic civilization to European modernity, and how the Islamic gunpowder empires formed a strong extension of medieval Islam before it disintegrated and European modernity penetrated within the environment of Islamic systems disintegrated from those major entities. The final touch with gorgeousness!
This series, probably, stole away the region of my "favorite religious series" of all time...
◾First Volume-
We can consider the great and wonderful work “The Adventure of Islam” as a comprehensive record of all eras and regions of Islamic history, concerned with the history of consciousness and conscience and the movement of cultural traditions and their social positions. It looks at the Islamic civilization, which Hodgson refers to as “Islamism,” as woven within global dimensions, and with this vision, Hodgson constitutes a break with the traditional Orientalist heritage, although Hodgson will intersect with it, as we will see on some issues. However, what distinguished Hodgson’s vision was his rejection of the fundamental approaches towards Islam, and from here he formulates his approach and establishes the edifice of his new terminology in his view of Islamic civilization in the introduction to his huge book, which reached two hundred. Page, and this introduction is the key to the book as a whole, as through it Hodgson set out to purge the Orientalist field of words and terms borrowed from European history, which revolve around the idea of Eurocentrism. Overwhelmed...
◾Second Volume-
A very important part about the Islamic heritage in the Middle Ages, even though it gives a major role to Sufism in the Islamic history movement in the Middle Ages. Perfectly categorized!
◾Third Volume-
It is one of the most important parts of the book because it relates to how our modern world was formed and the challenge of Islamic civilization to European modernity, and how the Islamic gunpowder empires formed a strong extension of medieval Islam before it disintegrated and European modernity penetrated within the environment of Islamic systems disintegrated from those major entities. The final touch with gorgeousness!
This series, probably, stole away the region of my "favorite religious series" of all time...
August 14, 2018
The concluding volume of Hodgson's trilogy offers some interesting insights if you can be patient enough to sift through the dense verbose narrative and the many irrelevant tangents. Towards the end; the objectivity suffers because you can tell he is allowing his own Quaker bias to colour his opinions. A flaw of this book is that Hodgson presents opinions as though they are factual without bothering to justify them. I would have liked to have seen a deeper explanation of the following:
1) The origin of Akbar's universalist approach to Islam and why his great-grandson Aurangzeb was so wholly different, persecuting and slaying so many Shias.
2) How communal rights between Muslims and Hindus started, and how were the British responsible?
3) A more detailed explanation of the errors in Allama Iqbal's ideology
4) A deeper explanation of how colonialism capitulated the Islamic legal processes present in Muslim countries.
Having read the book I am reminded of a salient statement made by Muhammad Asad; 'Islam did not make Muslims great. Muslims made Islam great.'
1) The origin of Akbar's universalist approach to Islam and why his great-grandson Aurangzeb was so wholly different, persecuting and slaying so many Shias.
2) How communal rights between Muslims and Hindus started, and how were the British responsible?
3) A more detailed explanation of the errors in Allama Iqbal's ideology
4) A deeper explanation of how colonialism capitulated the Islamic legal processes present in Muslim countries.
Having read the book I am reminded of a salient statement made by Muhammad Asad; 'Islam did not make Muslims great. Muslims made Islam great.'
July 29, 2011
The concluding book of Hodgson' trilogy is perhaps the wekest link in the group as Hodgson seems only able to give a few hints and suggestions of how to deal with the modern world after his much more magisterial treatment of the medieval period. Since much of the third book was compiled after the author's death based on his notes, the style of the work perhaps necessarily suffers. Also of interest is the switch in orientation from the universal treatment of themes in the first two works to a series of chapters on different regions in the third.
January 12, 2009
The Venture of Islam series is simply the best history of the the Islamic (and Islamicate!) world as a whole. Hodgson was such a visionary thinker, it is a shame he passed away so young!
February 21, 2025
Berkay Ersöz tarafından 2. kez Türkçe'ye çevrilmiştir. Tüm ciltler için içeriği dili yazım stili ve olayları yorumlaması açısından bakıldığında, eser tam bir sabır sınavıydı. Orjinal metinindeki çok çok uzun cümlelerin ve karşılıksız terimlerin bunda payı büyük. Konumuz olan 3. cilte ise, Tarihe, dinlere ve özellikle İslama bakışınızı değiştirecektir. Bu ciltte ise günümüz medeniyetler çatışması veya ayrışmasının kökleri sorgulanıyor, yakın geçmişi anlamlandırmak için üzerine iyi düşünülmesi gerekli analizler yapılıyor. Bir defada okunup anlaşılacak bir eser değil, okurken mutlaka kalem kağıt yanınızda olmalı...
July 24, 2022
It is only in the third volume that you realize how old the book is. Some of the historical explanations and terminologies in this volume are outdated but nevertheless, Hodgson provides you with a very robust and meaningful framework to understand what happened when the Islamic world had to face modernity. All in all, this is one of the best trilogies and a must-read if you want a great understanding of Islamic history.
September 7, 2019
The sections on modernity hold up remarkably well for a book written in the mid-60s.
January 10, 2024
Amazing read. Took me over 6 months to finish all the books but I learned a lot and enjoyed reading it.
September 9, 2024
Hodgson has earned himself a place as one of my intellectual heroes. This trilogy is an incredible feat, and holds up well, over fifty years later. And on a methodological level, this work represents, for me, the most compelling case for "World History" I've ever experienced. In Hodgson's hands, World History is not simply history with a wider scope; it is history with wider perspective.
When events are placed within the context of Eurasia over the past several thousand years, insights can be found that are not available with a more granular or specialized perspective. We see common challenges, common economic concerns, and intertwined development from Europe to China. Even during the modern era, when I worried that Hodgson's abstractions would flounder due to the speed of change, he offers a compelling account of the common problems faced by Muslims confronting modernity. Seeing the shared challenges of, say, Muslims in British Indian and the late Ottoman Empire — and their similar responses to these challenges — highlights the deep constraints that Muslims faced in how they adapted to modernity. On the other hands, if you want to know why Turkey and Iran have taken such different paths over the last hundred years, Hodgson's work has got you: his sociologically attuned mind is adept at comparative history, as well. Throw in a bunch of useful maps, diagrams, and timelines, and you have a very great trilogy.
When events are placed within the context of Eurasia over the past several thousand years, insights can be found that are not available with a more granular or specialized perspective. We see common challenges, common economic concerns, and intertwined development from Europe to China. Even during the modern era, when I worried that Hodgson's abstractions would flounder due to the speed of change, he offers a compelling account of the common problems faced by Muslims confronting modernity. Seeing the shared challenges of, say, Muslims in British Indian and the late Ottoman Empire — and their similar responses to these challenges — highlights the deep constraints that Muslims faced in how they adapted to modernity. On the other hands, if you want to know why Turkey and Iran have taken such different paths over the last hundred years, Hodgson's work has got you: his sociologically attuned mind is adept at comparative history, as well. Throw in a bunch of useful maps, diagrams, and timelines, and you have a very great trilogy.
March 12, 2008
The section on the GWT is the most interesting account of the advent of modernity I've yet read.
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November 4, 2016more relevant than ever
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews