The biography of a major figure in the history of ideas, by a Maghrebi medievalist.

Ibn Khaldun occupies a unique place in the history of Arab-Muslim thought. The author of the monumental Muqaddimah is compared to the great names of antiquity and the modern era, from Thucydides to Machiavelli, Montesquieu to Marx. Going aginst the grain of prevailing interpretations, which tend to presenter Ibn Khaldun as a scholar who, through his genius, transcended the limits of his geographical origins, this work stands out in its effort to place his body of work back in context, showing how the life and times of Ibn Khaldun shaped and informed his thought.