The Genius of Islam: How Muslims Made the Modern World

The Genius of Islam: How Muslims Made the Modern World
written and illustrated by Bryn Barnard, 2011. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. (9780375940729).

Media: oil on board, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop

Author/Illustrator Website: http://www.brynbarnard.com/Site_2/Home.html

Awards and Honors: none

Annotation: Discusses the Muslim world's contributions to modern art, science, math, medicine, writing and architecture.

Personal Reaction:
      The Genius of Islam: How Muslims Made the Modern World is a well-intentioned and ambitious book that attempts to show how the contributions of the Muslim world have shaped the modern world in which we live. Bryn Barnard packs a lot of information into this book and his illustrations are quite beautiful. The format leaves something to be desired, though. For an indepth non-fiction book like this, a table of contents and an index would be welcome additions. Also, the insets on each page that aim to present additional information about each topic would be more effective if they were larger and easier to read. My biggest issue with the book, though, is that Barnard conflates the religion of Islam, the people of the Middle East, Arabs and the Muslim world. Not all are interchangeable and some text that defines the differences between these groups and ideas would help immensely. Overall The Genius of Islam: How Muslims Made the Modern World is a book with an interesting and important message that suffers from issues with editorial direction. It's too bad, because it has some really great material but it needs to be more clearly presented.