Tim Mackintosh-Smith in conversation with Sumit Mandal

Eminent Arabist, translator, and traveller Tim Mackintosh-Smith has lived in the Arab world for 35 years and is a senior fellow of the Library of Arabic Literature. He will be at Lit Books to discuss his new book Arabs: A 3,000-Year History of Peoples, Tribes and Empires with historian and associate professor at University of Nottingham Malaysia Sumit Mandal. The discussion will be followed by book signing. FREE ADMISSION.

ABOUT THE BOOK
Arabs is a riveting, comprehensive history of the Arab peoples and tribes that explores the role of language as a cultural touchstone.

This kaleidoscopic book covers almost 3,000 years of Arab history and shines a light on the footloose Arab peoples and tribes who conquered lands and disseminated their language and culture over vast distances. Tracing this process to the origins of the Arabic language, rather than the advent of Islam, Mackintosh-Smith begins his narrative more than 1,000 years before Muhammad and focuses on how Arabic, both spoken and written, has functioned as a vital source of shared cultural identity over the millennia.

Mackintosh-Smith reveals how linguistic developments—from pre-Islamic poetry to the growth of script, Muhammad’s use of writing, and the later problems of printing Arabic—have helped and hindered the progress of Arab history, and investigates how, even in today’s politically fractured post–Arab Spring environment, Arabic itself is still a source of unity and disunity.

The paperback is available in-store at RM79.90.