- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: University of California Press; 2nd Revised edition edition (18 April 2006)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0520248406
- ISBN-13: 978-0520248403
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,091,491 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| ||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"Richard Fletcher is a distinguished historian and accomplished writer with the gift of making complex historical happenings comprehensible to his readers without losing a sense of their complexity."--Raymond Carr, "The Spectator
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Written in the same tradition as John Julius Norwich's engrossing accounts of Venice and Byzantium, Richard Fletcher's Moorish Spain entertains even as it enlightens. He tells the story of a vital period in Spanish history which transformed the culture and society, not only of Spain, but of the rest of Europe as well. Moorish influence transformed the architecture, art, literature and learning and Fletcher combines this analysis with a crisp account of the wars, politics and sociological changes of the time. 'Richard Fletcher makes a winding and wonderfully evocative journey through Spanish history...His mastery of his sources is hardly less remarkable than his vivid, almost physical grasp of the Spain he describes' The Economist
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Dealing with the 700 years of Muslim civilisation in Iberia, this is a gem of popular history, entertaining without sacrificing scholarly attention to detail. The prose is sharp, evocative, and eminently easy to read; the pages are filled with ancedotes and stories that bring this lost world to life. A taster rather than comprehensive, this is an essential companion to travels in Spain, or an ideal way to begin learning more about this oft-overlooked period.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In Moorish Spain Richard Fletcher achieves a significant feat. In a short book he not only chronicles the bones of nearly a millennium of history, but also offers much that adds to our understanding of the social context, both of his chosen era in particular and of history in general.
Moorish Spain does not aspire to scholarly excellence. Richard Fletcher's stated aim is to provide a fuller and more accurate account of Islamic rule in the Iberian peninsula than the cursory accounts offered in travel books. He also aspires to a treatment of the subject that is more accurate than the romanticised position of nineteenth century travellers, accounts that served to create and then perpetuate myth.
And paramount in this myth is the received opinion that in Moorish al-Andalus all things social were both sweetness and light and pure harmony. Not so, says Fletcher, as he chronicles power struggles, intrigues and repeated conflict. He describes the different interests that ensured that conflict, both small-scale and local or larger-scale and spread across a wider front, was never very far away. When competing parties felt that they could all benefit from interaction and trade, it was, he suggests, largely pragmatism that kept the peace.
His story begins in the early eighth century when the first invasion of what we now call Spain arrived from Morocco. It ends with the expulsion of the Mozarabes in the sixteenth century. In between, in a quite short and accessible book, he illustrates how shifting alliances and opportunity for short-term gain mix with broader views and humanitarian concerns to present a patchwork of history. And this patchwork is characterised, above all, by our inability to generalise. Throughout, it is the particular that is important.
In contrast he presents a number of generalised overviews and illustrates how none of them is more than partially correct. In a short but telling final chapter he offers a generalisation of his own to illustrate how dominant contemporary ideas can filter history in order to enhance its own credibility. Tellingly, he also reminds us of how much chronicled history relates only to the recorded opinions and lives of a wealthy, sometimes educated elite. How much detail of life in the twentieth century USA could be gleaned half a millennium from now if the only source was a telephone poll of Hollywood celebrities?
Richard Fletcher's book therefore transcends its own subject matter. It presents a rounded, carefully reconstructed picture of an immense swathe of history. In such a short account, of course, he can only present a relatively small amount of detail, but what is there goes a long way beyond what the average reader might ever discover from a shallow tourist guide. The style is easy but never racy and the content has a feeling of reliability that suggests a second visit would be worthwhile.
Moorish Spain does not aspire to scholarly excellence. Richard Fletcher's stated aim is to provide a fuller and more accurate account of Islamic rule in the Iberian peninsula than the cursory accounts offered in travel books. He also aspires to a treatment of the subject that is more accurate than the romanticised position of nineteenth century travellers, accounts that served to create and then perpetuate myth.
And paramount in this myth is the received opinion that in Moorish al-Andalus all things social were both sweetness and light and pure harmony. Not so, says Fletcher, as he chronicles power struggles, intrigues and repeated conflict. He describes the different interests that ensured that conflict, both small-scale and local or larger-scale and spread across a wider front, was never very far away. When competing parties felt that they could all benefit from interaction and trade, it was, he suggests, largely pragmatism that kept the peace.
His story begins in the early eighth century when the first invasion of what we now call Spain arrived from Morocco. It ends with the expulsion of the Mozarabes in the sixteenth century. In between, in a quite short and accessible book, he illustrates how shifting alliances and opportunity for short-term gain mix with broader views and humanitarian concerns to present a patchwork of history. And this patchwork is characterised, above all, by our inability to generalise. Throughout, it is the particular that is important.
In contrast he presents a number of generalised overviews and illustrates how none of them is more than partially correct. In a short but telling final chapter he offers a generalisation of his own to illustrate how dominant contemporary ideas can filter history in order to enhance its own credibility. Tellingly, he also reminds us of how much chronicled history relates only to the recorded opinions and lives of a wealthy, sometimes educated elite. How much detail of life in the twentieth century USA could be gleaned half a millennium from now if the only source was a telephone poll of Hollywood celebrities?
Richard Fletcher's book therefore transcends its own subject matter. It presents a rounded, carefully reconstructed picture of an immense swathe of history. In such a short account, of course, he can only present a relatively small amount of detail, but what is there goes a long way beyond what the average reader might ever discover from a shallow tourist guide. The style is easy but never racy and the content has a feeling of reliability that suggests a second visit would be worthwhile.
49 of 52 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this book because I was going on holiday to Andalucia and wanted some background reading on the area's history. It far exceeded my expectations and was a most enjoyable read in its own right. Richard Fletcher successfully explodes the myth that Moorish Spain was a pinnacle of civilisation bolted onto the barbarian European Christian kingdoms of the time. He dispels the image of a seamless period of rule and describes instead the rise and fall of various dynasties, often warring as much amongst themselves as with their Christian neighbours. He doesn't neglect the amazing achievements of the scholars, artists and craftsmen of the period, whose legacy lingers in the great monuments that draw hordes of visitors today but puts them into the context of mediaeval Europe as well as the wider Islamic world. My only gripe is that the book is fairly slim and in many places I would have liked to have found out more, particularly about the more mundane social history of such a multicultural society. But I firmly recommend it as a general introduction to the period - you certainly don't have to be a history student to enjoy and learn from this informative work.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A clear and comprehensive account of a unique civilisation
An interesting account that goes through the various stages - invasion, the Caliphate of Cordoba, dissolution into statelets, developing Christian encroachment, the Almoravid and... Read more
Published on 8 Jan 2010 by Martin White
Interesting
It is not a bad book but it seems to gloss over a lot of facts and puts the Christans into a better light than they should have been. Read more
Published on 22 Jun 2009 by gnostic
Excellent narrative history
This is an excellent overview of Spain's period of enlightenment and tolerance, written in an easy-to-read style that keeps the reader hooked. Loved it!
Published on 15 Jun 2009 by C. Etherington
Concise and scholarly introductory insight into the Muslim presence in...
Having read this book previously, and having had it's sadly-departed author enthusiastically endorsed by a respected Crusades lecturer, I already possessed a natural disposition to... Read more
Published on 7 April 2009 by N. Yachou
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > History > Europe
- Books > History > Religious History > Islam
- Books > History > World History > 501-1500
- Books > Religion & Spirituality
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.
|
