A humble appeal to the EB historians

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Originally Posted by Cyclops

The Islam movement might be a bit like the Goths (just with more of a unifying ideology)? Maybe it would be fruitful to see the arab empire as a process with a foundation phase, a horde phase, a state formation phase?

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Hm that sounds interesting. Any good books/articles that cover this topic?

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Originally Posted by Cyclops

Provinces and satelites are part of every empire: you might discuss Persian, Roman/Byzantine and Arab responses to the status of Armenia (a real bone of contention for empires seeking domination of the region for millenia).

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Looking over the thread again, I noticed your excellent ideas, Cyclops. I'm gonna give Armenia a shot. Narrowed down and unexplored (at least, it's not a standard subject at my uni). Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Intrepid Adventurer

Looking over the thread again, I noticed your excellent ideas, Cyclops. I'm gonna give Armenia a shot. Narrowed down and unexplored (at least, it's not a standard subject at my uni). Thanks!

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very interesting what you'll come up with! let us know.
there are some books on Armenia in EB Bibliography thread btw.

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Originally Posted by Sarkiss

very interesting what you'll come up with! let us know.
there are some books on Armenia in EB Bibliography thread btw.

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I will take a look at those books and tell you guys more on what I'm going to do with this paper. Down side is that I'm going to write it in Dutch and as such will be useless to the most of you. Oh well. ^_^

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Originally Posted by Intrepid Adventurer

Hm that sounds interesting. Any good books/articles that cover this topic?

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Not that I know of, but I am no scholar of the subject.

Islam is a very touchy subject, and probably hasn't been given the kind of thorough going over that Christianity has in western thought.

I've seen approaches varying from blatantly racist "look at these sand monkeys" type 19th century crap to touchy feely "they were all hippies, just with swords" revisionism.

Actually I do recall a book I read about Islam (to do with the meaning iof the word "Arab") which touched on the process of state formation, but I forget the title. Some Scandinavian chappie.

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Originally Posted by Intrepid Adventurer

Looking over the thread again, I noticed your excellent ideas, Cyclops. I'm gonna give Armenia a shot. Narrowed down and unexplored (at least, it's not a standard subject at my uni). Thanks!

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Umm, don't thank me until you get a pass OK. It may be a really silly idea I gave you. The bad ones usually sound good at first.

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Originally Posted by Cyclops

Umm, don't thank me until you get a pass OK. It may be a really silly idea I gave you. The bad ones usually sound good at first.

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No, the bad ideas always sound bad.

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Originally Posted by Intrepid Adventurer

I will take a look at those books and tell you guys more on what I'm going to do with this paper. Down side is that I'm going to write it in Dutch and as such will be useless to the most of you. Oh well. ^_^

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well, if you do eventually write it, you could just give us your milestones, main points, conclusions etc. no need to break it down really for the interested public is quite knowledgeable on the subject. Im personally just curious about how you gonna get it all lined up and glued together and prove/disprove an existence of a consistent pattern throughout centuries... if there are any.:book:

No worries, Cyclops. My teacher was pleasantly surprised and loved the idea. He said (as we all agree) that Armenia is indeed a very interesting area to focus on. I practically copy/pasted the literature from the EB books thread, he said he saw some good books there, haha.

So there you go!

As articles on the topic of early Islamic conquest and the political organisation of the Arabs around the time go, here is one I know of. Discusses specifically the Who's Who Calling The Shots aspect. The site I found it through is pretty good in general.