Detailed
Description |
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Unusual Arabic work, in Arabic, on Maimonides. The text, entirely in that language, is accompanied by a detailed and comprehensive twelve page bibliography of works in Latin letters, primarily in German, but also including English, French, and Italian. This bibliography, apart from the Arabic text, is of independent value, given how detailed and thorough it is.
That such a detailed work should exist is surprising, as a United Nations study found that Arabic book translation industry in these Arab countries has not yet achieved the level of development of other developing and developed countries. Underperformance of the Arabic book translation industry is attributable to (among other factors) severe coordination failures. This is a state of affairs in which the inability of the different agents (translators, book publishers, suppliers, customers, and supporting organizations, state, and so forth) to coordinate their behavior (choices) leads to suboptimal outcomes. Since the economic performance of the translation industry often involves complementary investments whose return depends on other investments being made by other agents, coordination is crucial. Obviously, neither market forces nor the state have undertaken this coordination activity sufficiently. The Arabic book translation industry seems to suffer from both market failure and government failure. |
