In a recent exhibition on Ottoman culture held in Amsterdam's Nieuwe Kerk was an unimpressive-looking little 18th-century book, a printed version of a manuscript produced 150 years earlier. Usually a manuscript is more rare than a printed work, but in this case the cultural and historical importance of the printed book surpassed that of the manuscript from which it derived: This was one of the first books printed in the Middle East in an Arabic typeface. The language was Ottoman Turkish.The book, titled The History of the West Indies, dates from 1730, comprises 91 pages and four maps and includes illustrations of plants and people. Its author is uncertain, but the name of the printer who produced it is known: He was the Hungarian Ibrahim Muteferrika, the man who started an information revolution in the Muslim world.