Ibn Khaldn: Political Thought

Ibn Khaldn is one of the outstanding thinkers about the nature of society and politics in the pre-modern Arab world. This volume presents the political writings of the fourteenth-century philosopher, stressing their enduring relevance. Arnold Toynbee used to say that Ibn Khaldn's work was the most impressive endeavour to build a theory out of history ever undertaken before the nineteenth century. However, translators and historians discovered Ibn Khaldn at the time when new revolutionary economic and political conditions were dismissive of his philosophy. In this edition, Gabriel Martinez-Gros brings Ibn Khaldn's political thought to the forefront, exploring his theories in the context of his era, but also emphasizing their profound resonances with modern society. Far from the caricature of Ibn Khaldn as a 'tribal philosopher', Martinez-Gros shows that Ibn Khaldn's thought is about creating wealth in an agrarian society, concerned with economic concepts, demography, war and violence.