[lemma=historical] □ □ □
[lemma=historical] [□] □ □
[lemma=historical] □ □ □ □
In the Library 's reconstruction — an act both historical an literary and , in contemporary Alexandria , in actual fact — readers will gain a better understanding of that part of our heritage that is Hellenic , and of other traditions which , blended in the alembic of Alexandria , informed the modern European mind . By the eighteenth century Europe boasted a considerable body of scholarly literature regarding the Islamic world — editions of texts and translations of historical and literary and theological works , as well as histories of literature and religion and even general histories of Islamic countries , with descriptions of their people and their ways .