Adam Silverstein's book offers a fascinating account of the official methods of communication employed in the Near East from pre-Islamic times through the Mamluk period. Postal systems were set up by rulers in order to maintain control over vast tracts of land. These systems, invented centuries before steam-engines or cars, enabled the swift circulation of different commodities - from letters, people and horses to exotic fruits and ice. As the correspondence transported often included confidential reports from a ruler's provinces, such postal systems doubled as espionage-networks through which news reached the central authorities quickly enough to allow a timely reaction to events. The book sheds light not only on the role of communications technology in Islamic history, but also on how nomadic culture contributed to empire-building in the Near East. This is a long-awaited contribution to the history of pre-modern communications systems in the Near Eastern world.
| ISBN: | 9780521147613 |
| Publication date: | 24th June 2010 |
| Author: | Adam J University of Oxford Silverstein |
| Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 230 pages |
| Series: | Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization |
| Genres: |
Media, entertainment, information and communication industries Asian history |