Fritz Meier (1912-1998) is one of the most outstanding Orientalists of this century. His publications combine masterful philological method and precision, profound and penetrating textual interpretation, and a wide-ranging familiarity with primary sources which may truly be characterized as phenomenal. Among the numerous fields in which he has undertaken original research, Persian poetry and Islamic mysticism (Sufism) in the widest sense stand out in particular. His work on Sufism covers the whole of the Islamic world and Islamic history from its beginnings up to the 20th century. The present provides for the first time a translation of 15 of Fritz Meier's seminal articles. The selected articles deal with the history of Sufism; Sufi morals and practices such as dhikr and samā‘; the historical development of the master-disciple relationship; Ibn Taymiyya's attitude toward Sufism; pious devotional practices such as making use of the tasliya; essential sources for the history of Sufism in the Maghreb and the Almoravids. Extensive indices facilitate the use of this epoch-making work.

Forms and Concepts is the first comprehensive study of the central role of concepts and concept acquisition in the Platonic tradition. It sets up a stimulating dialogue between Plato’s innatist approach and Aristotle’s much more empirical response. The primary aim is to analyze and assess the strategies with which Platonists responded to Aristotle’s (and Alexander of Aphrodisias’) rival theory. The monograph culminates in a careful reconstruction of the elaborate attempt undertaken by the Neoplatonist Proclus (6th century AD) to devise a systematic Platonic theory of concept acquisition.

This volume brings together thirty-four essays and ar- ticles by Werner J. Cahnman representing four decades (1940-1980) of work by an extraordinary, multidisciplinary scholar. Cahnman's work encompasses the experiences of a German Jewish refugee, an economist turned sociologist, and a scholar of Judaism. Part 1 contains personal and autobiographical writings and includes analyses of the cultural ambiguities of Jewish assimilation in Germany and Austria. Part 2 is devoted to sociological essays ranging from a critical assessment of Gunnar Myrdal's landmark study of the problems of race and democracy, An American Dilemma, to a probing look at the stigma of obesity, based on empirical research, a subject very much in the news today and that shows Cahnman ahead of his time. Part 3 offers some of Cahnman's most perceptive essays dealing with geopolitical themes. Included are theoretically based writings that help to clarify the methods and concepts of geopolitics, marking the intellectual beginnings of the global approach to world affairs. Here Cahnman broached the possibility of a united Europe (1944), realized sixty years later in the formation of the European Union. The twelve essays of Part 4 return to Cahnman's ever-present concern with Jews and Judaism. They present a wide-ranging historical-sociological view, from the Jews of Vienna in the 1930s to the American scene in the 1960s, to the still-unresolved problematics of Arab-Israeli relations, with Cahnman arguing for coexistence and a two-state solution for Jews and Arabs. The volume, carefully selected and assembled by the editors, presents for the first time essays representing the full range of Werner Cahnman's scholarship and thought. It will be of interest to students of sociology, history, political science, and Judaic studies.

Written by a noted historian of science, this in-depth account traces how Watson and Crick achieved one of science's most dramatic feats: their 1953 discovery of the molecular structure of DNA.