id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
ajiss-478		ajiss-478		4	.pdf	application/pdf	1519	44	45	The first is a short political essay com- prised of chronologically arranged anecdotes about the caliphs—begin- ning with Abū Bakr (r. 11-13/632-4) and ending with al-Muʿtaḍid (r. 279- 89/892-902)—and examples of how the people of their times, according to al-Yaʿqūbī, tended to follow them in their conduct and tastes. Despite the scarcity of biographical information (“there is little that can be known for certain about al-Yaʿqūbī and his life,” 1:10), Anthony and Gordon provide a 77Book Reviews useful summary of what we can know about him, based on a few accounts of other historians who cite his works and what might be inferred from his own writings: his hardline Shīʿism, the works he compiled, the approxi- mate date of his death (shortly after 295/908), his many travels, some of the places in which he lived from al-Fusṭāṭ to Iṣfahān, his links to certain dynasties (Ṭāhirids in Iran and Ṭūlūnids in Egypt), his involvement in the bureaucratic circles of the ʿAbbāsid era and his particular attachment to, and historical interest in, the ʿAbbāsid dynasty.	cache/ajiss-478.pdf	txt/ajiss-478.txt