"This is an impressive book . clearly written and argued . and of particular interest to scholars of textual practices elsewhere in the medieval world, both Arab and beyond."--Jamie Wood, University of Lincoln, Al-Masaq: The Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean "[Konrad Hirschler's] book is a model of meticulous scholarship and should be in the library of all readers interested in the premodern cultural history of the Arabo-Islamic world."--Roger Allen, Emeritus, University of Pennsylvania, American Historical Review "This is a clever book looking at the writing practices amongst Arab intellectual classes during the Middle Ages . The research is meticulous, the arguments and evidence are beautifully presented, and comparative references to Europe as well as further east are interesting and mean that this book should have an audience far beyond Islamic Studies."--BRISMES Book Prize 2012 "This is a book that will interest all social historians and not just Arabic text scholars. Despite its ground-breaking nature, it is essentially conceived as a handbook, and its five chapters are structured for maximum clarity and usability.

" - Julia Bray, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society "Konrad Hirschler's book is a first-rate synchronic analysis of popular practices and institutions related to books in medieval society." -- Ahmed El Shamsy, Journal of the American Oriental Society "The book is a rare combination of an elegant read and meticulous scholarship. It is both a competent digest of research in different fields and a sound analysis of hitherto untapped sources, at the same time immensely rich and remarkably brief. Hirschler is able to dissolve the chronological and regional imbalances of the available sources into a coherent, well written narrative, without glossing over the lacunae those sources confront him with." -- Boris Liebrenz, Universität Leipzig, Review of Middle East Studies "The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands is a welcome addition to the still quite limited scholarship on literary culture of what is understood as the middle period of Arabic literature.This is a fascinating book with a wealth of insights into the complexity of changing "writerly" activities in Egypt and Syria in the eleventh through fifteenth centuries. It challenges the overemphasis on modern technologies by showing that the changing use of more basic, premodern technologies and social practices for safeguarding and circulating information was central to the consumption of textual culture. Students and scholars of Eurasia and Africa will benefit from reading this book.

" -- Jocelyn Sharlet, University of California, Davis, Speculum "This is an important book, a landmark in the study of literacy and its implications in the medieval Middle East. Hirschler has important things to tell us about the way in which medieval Muslims approached literacy and the interrelations between textual and aural modes of transmission and reception. His focus on the reading practices of people who did not belong to the learned elite broadens the scope of inquiry into reading and writing in the medieval Islamic world and raises questions that will need to be addressed in future research." -- Adam Sabra, Journal of Islamic Studies.