Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798‎-1939 is the most comprehensive study of the modernizing trend of political and social thought in the Arab Middle East‎.‎ Albert Hourani studies the way in which ideas about politics and society changed during the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries‎,‎ in response to the expanding influence of Europe‎.‎ His main attention is given to the movement of ideas in Egypt and Lebanon‎.‎ He shows how two streams of thought‎,‎ the one aiming to restate the social principles of Islam‎,‎ and the other to justify the separation of religion from politics‎,‎ flowed into each other to create the Egyptian and Arab nationalisms of the present century‎.‎ The last chapter of the book surveys the main tendencies of thought in the post‎-war years‎.‎ Since its publication in 1962‎,‎ this book has been regarded as a modern classic of interpretation‎.‎ It was reissued by the Cambridge University Press in 1983 and has subsequently sold over 8000 copies‎.‎