Qusayr 'Amra: Art and the Umayyad Elite in Late Antique Syria, Garth Fowden, 2004, HC, NF.

Fowden, Garth. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

English, Near Fine, HC, 8vo, 9 1/4" x 6 1/4", [x] xxix, [2] 390 pp.

ISBN: 0520236653

Black cloth over board, stamped gilt lettering to spine, minor cocking to spine, light bump to head, otherwise, superior copy inside and out, with only the most minimal, unobtrusive wear to bindings, text-block and endpapers. Very Good light brown pictorial dust jacket, featuring full-color details of a fresco in Qusayr 'Amra to front, peach, black, and white lettering to front, back, spine, and interior flaps, minor bump and two 1/4" closed tears to head, light wear to top edge of interior flaps, otherwise, clean and intact. Protected in a paper-backed Mylar sleeve. [x] xxix, [2] 390 pp. replete with black-and-white images and maps. Includes Maps and Illustrations, Abbreviations, Preface, 10 chapters: "Musil's Fairy-Tale Castle," "Luxuries of the Bath," "The Hunt," "'O God, Bless the Amir'," "The Princely Patron," "Maintaining the Dynasty," "The Six Kings," "A Captive Sasanian Princess," "Qusayr 'Amra Contextualized," "Umayyad Self-Representation," Epilogue, Appendix: The Value of Arabic Literacy Sources, Bibliography, and Index. From inside dust jacket: "This is the first book-length contextualization of the mysterious monument through an imaginative and compelling analysis of its iconography and of the literary sources for the Umayyad period. It evokes not only the way of life of the early Muslim elite but also the long afterglow of the late antique Syria."