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Zayde Antrim, Routes and Realms: The Power of Place in the Early IslamicWorld (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012)Routes and Realms explores the ways in which Muslims expressed attachment toland from the ninth through the eleventh centuries, the earliest period ofintensive written production in Arabic. In this first book, Zayde Antrimdevelops a "discourse of place," a framework for approaching formal textsdevoted to the representation of territory across genres. The discourse ofplace included such varied works as topographical histories, literaryanthologies, religious treatises, world geographies, poetry, travelliterature, and maps. By closely reading and analyzing these works, Antrimargues that their authors imagined plots of land primarily as homes, cities,and regions and associated them with a range of claims to religious andpolitical authority. She contends that these are evidence of the powerfulways in which the geographical imagination was tapped to declare loyalty andinvoke belonging in the early Islamic world.Table of Contents:Introduction: The Discourse of PlacePart I: Home1. Home as HomelandPart II: City2. Cities and Sacred History3. The Image of the CityPart III: Region4. Dividing the World5. Routes and RealmsConclusion: Looking ForwardZayde AntrimAssociate Professor of History and International Studies Director,International Studies Program Department of History, Trinity College 300Summit St., Hartford, CT 06106 (office tel.) 860-297-2230