BOOKS BRIEFLY NOTED

Noble, David F. The Religion of Technology:The Divinity of Man and the Spirit
of Invention. New York: Alfred Knopf, 1997. Pp. 304. $26.00 cloth.

is perhaps worth clarifying what this book is not. It ponders the ideas of
It
an ample roster of millenarians, utopians, and perfectionists; but it is not
part of the current "millennium boom." Nor does it offer yet another sur-
vey of the metaphoric life of the idea of the irreconcilable "two cultures."
Instead, Noble undertakes, in a surprisingly slender and readable volume,
something far larger: "It is the aim of this book to demonstrate that the pre-
sent enchantment with things technological - the very measure of modern
enlightenment - is rooted in religious myths and ancient imaginings." Noble
is fully sensitive to the arrogance in that word "enlightenment," as well as
to the fervor of religious conviction to be found even in the heart of what
we might call the Technobeast - at places like MIT for instance, where he
was for a period a member of the faculty.
The starting point of his "rooting" (or at least its first visible sign) would
seem to be the so-called Utrecht Psalter of 830, which aligns technology
with the forces of God. As Noble paints the picture, technology at this
chronological moment became not so much the sign of Man's fallen con-
dition as the means by which it might be overcome. St. Augustine, who
propounded an opposite view, got all the coverage; but Erigena and Hugo
of St. Victor could quote as much scripture on their side.
It would take far more historical and theological learning than I could
claim to weigh this book fully; surely by daring to range from Tindale to the
Rosicrucians to Evelyn Fox Keller, from both Bacons to Lewis Mumford
and Allen Turing, Noble would seem almost to invite cavil. What is impres-
sive is not only his display of learning - to glance at his bibliography is to
feel sternly rebuked, I fear - but even more, the lucidity and suasion of his
argument.
And along the way there are so many new notions, unnoticed motiva-
tions, forgotten actions to be discovered. One instance will have to serve:
as an Americanist especially intrigued by the way that arrivals in the "New
World" have tried to make sense of a radically unfamiliar place, I have sev-
eral times made use of Columbus' journals. But I had not paid attention to
the Admiral's self portrayal as a prophet, as an agent of the Millennium in
a profoundly religious sense. I came away informed - always a pleasure.
My only quibble is that an epilogue, on "technology and gender," feels
like a publisher's afterthought, a politically-correct venture into a field of
controversy that is especially alive at MIT in recent years, given the work
of Dr. Fox Keller. But it too, in small compass, has much of weight and
sense to say. As does the whole of this book, in fact, chapter by chapter.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology John Hildebidle

Stierlin, Henri and Anne. Splendours of an Islamic World: Mamluk Art in

Cairo, 1250-1517.London and New York: Tauris Parke Books, 1997. Pp. 219
+ 184 illustrations. $59.50 cloth.

Atil's Renaissance of Islam : Art of the Mamluks (Smithsonian Press,

sin
1981) treated lovers of Islamic art to a splendid array of objects, from
elaborately inlaid Qur'an boxes and incense burners to rich textiles and
massive illuminated Qur'ans, all created by the Mamluk dynasty. But since
Atil's work was an exhibition catalogue, it did not include architecture.
Splendours of an Islamic VUorldby Henri and Anne Stierlin rounds out Atil's
contribution with a fine survey of major monuments of Mamluk architec-
ture. It is not the first to treat this large topic, but it makes available to a
wider public the kind of work done earlier in Doris Behrens-Abouseif's
Islamic Architecture in Cairo (Leiden, 1989) and Michael Meineke's Die
Mamlukische Architektur in Aegypten und Syrien (Glueckstadt, 1992).
The book's chief strength is its nearly 200 illustrations, most in color.
They include plans for most of the major buildings discussed, with several
elevations of the same, and good quality photos of actual buildings with
scores of detail shots. Adding still greater interest are over a dozen draw-
ings and paintings from several nineteenth-century European works, images
that provide views of Cairo at a time when one could have taken in the
great Mamluk edifices in ways no longer possible in that overbuilt metrop-
olis.
Splendours unveils a city of great beauty, a capital every bit the equal of
the Rome, Paris, and Constantinople of its day. A judicious blend of archi-
tectural commentary, explanations of essential technical and material issues,
and descriptions of the social makeup of medieval Cairo lead the reader
imaginatively through its streets. As for the question of how and to what
degree one can talk of the Mamluk eastern Mediterranean as 'an Islamic
world,' the authors answer implicitly with reference to function: one sees

392