“A superb account of how a historian developed his own historical methodology.. ”

Allen James Fromherz is an Assistant Professor of Medieval Mediterranean and Islamic History at Georgia State University in atlanta. He is author of the Almohads: The Rise of an Islamic Empire (2010), Qatar: A Modern History (2013) and Ibn Khaldun, Life and Times (Edinburgh University Press) examine the rise of empire in medieval North Africa and Iberia. Dr. Fromherz's most recently completed work The Near West: North Africa and Europe (Edinburgh – Expected end of 2016), examines the history of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish interactions across the Western Mediterranean, especially in Iberia, Morocco, Tunisia, and Italy.

Ibn Khaldun is one of the most influential and importan Muslim thinkers in history,inspiring at least as much interest among modern scholars as his immediate contemporaries. Legions of socioogists,anthropologists and historians have studied his philosophy of history, treating the Muqaddimah as timeless piece of philosophy. Historian are always pleased to see new book featuring and respected historians. The book is divided into seven chapters: Historian meets history, Ibn Khaldun's early life, Ibn Khaldun the statesman, Egypt, Ibn Khaldun's method, Modernity and On being Ibn Khaldun. Relying on original Arabic sources, most importantly Ibn Khaldun unic autobiography, this is the first complete scholarly biography of Ibn Khaldun in English.

My only criticisms of this erudite volume would be that a few more images somewhere inside its 190 pages might have been helpful, especially in illustrating the social environment of North Africa. For example, after a fascinating discussion in Chapter 6 about the famous (or notorious, depending on one's views of the Bourguiba regime) 1978 Ibn Khaldun statue in Tunis, and the legacy of the man in modern Arab society and history, a photograph of the sculpture itself would have been apposite and useful.

However, this book had very detailed narrative on the life of Ibn Khaldun in a very non Eurocentric perspective. The book also challenges against the modernist approach of history writing and historical methodology Ibn Khaldun's life very deeply and fascinating life story.