I've been reading around a lot about Islamic science recently. Most of the books concerned I've read only partially (hence their lack of a mention here); one thing many of them have in common is that they're pushing a view of some kind -- either that Islamic science was truly wonderful for reasons that, on analysis, don't really bear up, or that Islamic science is barely worth a mention, being nothing more than preservation of Greek and other texts. (Karen Armstrong's 2000 book Islam: A Short History manages, incredibly, to ignore Islamic science and scientists almost entirely -- no Alhazen, no Geber, no Omar Khayyam. Avicenna and Averroes get a mention, but only to talk about their theology. In a history of Christianity this lacuna might at a stretch be explicable on the grounds that theology was her focus, but that doesn't wash with Islam, where the quest for knowledge is supposedly inseparable from the quest for God.) I felt the need for a short overview of the subject that wouldn't require me to wade through thickets of justification or theological score-settling, and Ganchy's little book, designed I think with young adults in mind, fitted the bill just perfectly. Although it has its flaws (her roundup of modern Islamic scientists inexplicably includes the entrepreneur who founded eBay but excludes Abdus Salam, who shared the 1979 Nobel Physics Prize; she does, however, catch Ahmed Zewail, Chemistry laureate in 1999), I'd recommend this to anyone seeking, as I was, a quick introduction that's clear of unnecessary clutter. ( )