- Paperback: 320 pages
- Publisher: Black Swan; New edition edition (3 Jan 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0552771244
- ISBN-13: 978-0552771245
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.6 x 2.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 190,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Andalus: Unlocking the Secrets of Moorish Spain
and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Sunday Telegraph
'Engaging and stimulating.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Guardian
'Highly entertaining. The writing is refined and elliptical, while Webster handles his material with huge assurance.'
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoyable Webster. Poor exploration of the subject.,
By
This review is from: Andalus: Unlocking the Secrets of Moorish Spain (Hardcover)
I was ill-abed when I read this book, pretty much straight through in one go. It is ideal for that sort of situation because Jason Webster is no slouch with a sentence. He can and does write interestingly.
The problem with this book is that he does not have anything original or even particularly interesting to say about the residual influences of mediaeval Moorish culture on current Spanish life. He repeatedly uses the 'example' of 'hola!' being derived from 'Allah'. Well, 'hello', which seems clearly derived from the same root, is given in the Oxford Concise as derived from the identical word 'hola' in French, being a conjunction of 'ho!'[hey!] and la ['there!']. I'm as inclined to believe this version as the Allah one, perhaps more so as the use in French cannot be influenced by Arabic 'Allah'. There was another example of mis-attribution to Arabic culture of something concerned with navigation and seafaring, which I happened to know was certainly wrong [being a bit of an old salt, m'self] but I'm sorry to say that as I write, I just can't remember what it was [I mentioned I was ill at the time, you recall], so until I find it and add it to a comment following this review, you'll have to take my word for it. Suffice to say that Webster has been pretty weak with the ground-work and research required to make his attributions soundly based and believable. The result is paper-thin evidentially and thus entirely untrustworthy as a proposition Jason Webster can tell a story well. His personal narrative in his book 'Duende' proves this. But why are some of the stories recounted here in what is intended, we are led to understand, to be a serious exposition of a major cultural omission [if such it proves to be] from the Spanish view of themselves and their present culture? The tale of his escapades with Zine, the Moroccan he feels obliged to help out after his escape from the mafiosi tomato farmers, is a slim branch to hang the Moorish quest on and it often gives way completely. Other episodes, like the Nativity gig in the pole-dancing club, are amusing but entirely irrelevant, pure filler. His publishers recognise Jason Webster as a talented writer. His book 'Duende' was a success both as writing and as a narrative. He has published 'Andalus' and another, 'Guerra' on the strength of the first book and both these later two, being explorations of something 'hidden' in Spanish society and culture, fail because Jason Webster is not equipped with sufficient depth of knowledge nor rigour of research to do them justice.
50 of 56 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating search for traces of the Moors,
By Fíal (Paris, France) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Andalus: Unlocking the Secrets of Moorish Spain (Hardcover)
I glanced at this book, which was on display in the English-language section of a Frankfurt bookstore, and ended up buying it and reading it in a day, it was so absorbing. I've always thought Spain was a country of hidden history-- I once met a man whose Spanish-Jewish family had kept their religion alive for centuries while pretending to be ordinary Catholics to avoid persecution. Spain also has Visigothic, pre-Roman and Moorish roots, and was at the core of the Roman empire. Jason Webster, who speaks Arabic and Spanish and has a Spanish wife, starts off on his journey around Spain with the idea that 800 years of Moorish identity must have left many traces in Spain beyond the obvious ones of architecture and language. For many years this was suppressed; the Moors had always been the enemy, the other. After the Reconquest in 1492, they were first forced to convert and then expelled from Spain. Webster sees Moorish Spain as an idyllic place where Jews, Muslims and Christians lived happily together in tolerance, bringing knowledge and sophistication to benighted Europe. This has not been the view of most Spaniards over the centuries, but he makes a good argument for it in the book. A scholar of Moorish Spain would not learn much from this book (but would still be amused by the travelogue) but most of us have a lot to remember about how much the Moors gave us: sugar, cotton, paper, oranges, and of course the crucial zero. The second thread in the book happened accidentally. While secretly interviewing slave laborers on a farm near Valencia, Spain, the writer is rescued from violent farmers by an illegal Moroccan immigrant named Zine. Jason feels an obligation to Zine and ends up taking him with him around Spain, trying to find Zine a job. Zine seems mostly interested in sleeping with as many Spanish women as possible, but surprises himself by falling in love with Lucia, a friend of Jason's wife. The theme of Spain and the Moors perfectly illustrated, it seems! But as in history, there is no happy ending. The most interesting parts of the book, for me, were the flashes of Moorish life still alive in Spain. Who knew that "Hola" and "Hala" come from the ubiquitous "Allah"? Once I saw a North African male troupe of dancers using many of the same gestures and movements as a woman flamenco dancer in Granada in Spain. Even some typically Spanish dishes turn out to come from the Moors. The author interviews two experts on Moorish Spain, who have opposite points of view, a flamenco dancer, a Spanish convert to Islam, and a scion of an ancient royal family. He has a way of spotting the revealing detail, of seeing the vulnerability in even the most obnoxious person. He must be a bizarrely good listener. I for one could not sit and nod while someone told me that the Americans bombed the World Trade Center themselves. My two main criticisms of the book are that, first of all, the author does not show the respect for Christian culture that he lavishes on Moorish Islam-- every mention of a church or priest or religious custom seems to be snide. He never asks the question: how did the Spaniards keep the fight NOT to be Moorish alive for 800 years? The more important criticism is that the most devastating difference between Christian Spain and Muslim Morocco (seen as the heirs of the Moors) is passed over in silence: women. In the book, Westerners and Muslim men speak. Muslim women, of course, do not. A Queen Isabella of the Reconquest could never have happened in Andalus. The fact that Zine pursues the freer Spanish women like a randy animal is seen as a lovable quirk, rather than a commonplace consequence of his Islamic upbringing, in which women are either to be exploited or dominated. Yet this common and ancient Muslim male attitude is one of the biggest problems facing not just modern Spain but the world. I believe that the author thinks he has said something, in subtle fashion, on the subject; but considering his passion while describing the golden age of Andalus and the prejudices Moroccans face in Spain today, he could have been a little less subtle about one of the main reasons those prejudices exist. Still, a fine book. I hope to see many more from Jason Webster.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Weak,
By
This review is from: Andalus: Unlocking The Secrets Of Moorish Spain (Paperback)
I'm currently reading this book and I had hoped to find it a fascinating read about the Moorish legacy to Spain. It's interesting in parts but I find the inclusion of the author's Moroccan companion and his own personal quest not wholly believable nor the altogether too frequent coincidental appearances of the writer's old friends.
The author clearly wants to prove that an enormous amount of the Spanish language and culture should be attributed to the Moors. There are too many conjectural links between Spanish and Arabic words for my own liking. For instance, he attributes the introduction of the practice of roasting peppers to the Moors. But seeing that their final expulsion from Spain in 1492 preceded Columbus's discovery of the New World and the pepper plant, it seems impossible to me. A disappointing read.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
