Ahmed El Shamsy. Rediscovering the Islamic Classics: How Editors and Print Culture Transformed an Intellectual Tradition.

In his formidable account of the transformative power of the written word, Roger Chartier wrote that “If the French of the late eighteenth century fashioned the Revolution, it is because they had in turn been fashioned by books.” Following his cue, many studies on book culture in the last two decades have sought to establish links between printed books and revolutions.