Communities Archives - Page 4 of 4 - Centro Primo Levi New York

Jews of Islam: Updated Edition

Bernard Lewis, Princeton University Press, 2014 Against a vivid background of Jewish and Islamic history, Bernard Lewis portrays the Judaeo-Islamic tradition – a cultural relationship parallel to the Judaeo-Christian heritage. He traces its origins in the early Middle Ages, its…

CPL

February 24, 2026

Communities

Jews, Visigoths and Muslims in Medieval Spain

Norman Roth, Brill 1994 Jews settled in medieval Spain at least by the third century, and under the Christian Visigoths (sixth to eighth centuries) suffered increasing hostility and persecution, from which they were saved by the Muslim invasion. This book…

CPL

February 24, 2026

The Ottoman Catalogue is a curated section of our Bookstore featuring English-language classics and new scholarship on Ottoman history and culture. It explores the impact of nationalism on the Ottoman Empire, the consequences of its decline and dissolution for Europe, and the histories of peoples, lands, religions, and their books before the concept of “the Middle East” emerged as a political and geographical term.

Following two decades of research, programming, and publishing on the history of nationalism, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, Centro Primo Levi moved its attention to the period before 1922, exploring the stories, ideas, exchanges, and transformations that occurred over six centuries of Ottoman rule.

The era that ushered in the rise of the workers movement, totalitarianiasm, the Spanish Civil War, the fall of three empires, the shaping of modern nation-states, and the establishment of an economy based on industrial and scientific growth, banking, and warfare, also brought to an end cultures, concepts of time, language, and rituals that today’s observers often struggle to appreciate.

Much of this history has attracted modest attention from American and English-language scholarship. However, over the past few years, there has been an increase in original and translated research and publications, showcasing this period from various angles and perspectives. As the “Middle East” storms into our societies, challenging the vocabulary of public life, as well as its ethical and epistemological paradigms, we feel that attempting to move our gaze back into this past may help us refine our sensibility and interpretational tools.