Editors' preface: A noted historian of the Middle East has said the following about the legacy of scholars who devoted their careers to the study of the region: The giants of the recent past tend to be largely forgotten as soon as they are dead if not before, especially if what they have written isn't what is now considered fashionable or central … They are criticized when they are in error, but their achievements are forgotten.[1] While this is largely true in the English-speaking countries, it is not true in France, where a few French "giants" of Islamic and Arab...