An absorbing, crisply written chronicle...If you're expecting an argument on behalf of peaceful coexistence or, alternatively, a call to alarm on the order of Samuel P. Huntington's "The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order," the colorful, if often gruesome, story that O'Shea narrates with considerable panache offers no easy answers to our current predicament.” —Los Angeles Times
“Admirably evenhanded.” —Dallas Morning News
“A tour de force...a beautiful, necessary book, punctuated with passages of dark, luminous, symbolic power. If, as it appears, we have entered a new ‘dark ages,' only by facing the worst about what seems to offer hope to believers can we forge new hopes—tolerant places where convivencia, as embodied in this superb book, flourishes once again.” —Christian Science Monitor
“A gripping account of Christianity and Islam's first tortured millennium of combat and coexistence. Vivid vocabulary, tasteful touches of humor and a traveler's-eye view of the Mediterranean enrich the history. An engaging glimpse into the events that shaped the Mediterranean basin as we know it today.” —Kirkus Reviews
“O'Shea's marvelous accomplishment offers an unparalleled glimpse of the struggles of each religion to establish dominance in the medieval world as well as of the strategies for living together that the religions enacted as they shared the same territory.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
In this elegant, fast-paced, and judicious cultural and religious history, journalist O'Shea, author of The Perfect Heresy, provides a remarkable glimpse into the origins of the conflicts between Christians and Muslims as well as their once peaceful coexistence. He focuses on seven military battles-Yarmuk A.D. 636), Poitiers (732), Manzikert (1071), Hattin (1187), Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), Constantinople (1453) and Malta (1565)-between Christians and Muslims as the high-water marks of their attempts to shape the Mediterranean ("sea of faith") world of the Middle Ages. O'Shea vividly captures and recreates not only the enmity between the two religions but also the sectarian rivalries and political intrigues within each religion. Yet the relationship between Christianity and Islam was marked not only by bloody Crusades and wars of conquest. As O'Shea so eloquently points out, Christians and Muslims also experienced long periods of rapprochement, signaled by the long peace at C rdoba in the early Middle Ages and in the intellectual and social flourishing at Toledo and Palermo in the 11th century. O'Shea's marvelous accomplishment offers an unparalleled glimpse of the struggles of each religion to establish dominance in the medieval world as well as at the strategies for living together that the religions enacted as they shared the same territory. (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Gripping account of Christianity and Islam's first tortured millennium of combat and coexistence. O'Shea (The Perfect Heresy, 2000, etc.) centers his narrative around the Mediterranean, which acts as a neutral witness to the historic events unfolding on its diverse shores. His sweeping tale covers nearly a thousand years and takes the reader back and forth from the Holy Land to Iberia, starting in an age of swordsmen and archers and ending with the use of cannons and firearms. Folded among the battles were periods of peaceful coexistence during which trade and culture flourished. The author attempts to focus readers on the importance of this convivencia, the practice of Muslims and Christians living together in harmony. However, as meaningful as convivencia was to history, his account cannot ignore the brutal warfare that more dramatically shaped the Mediterranean basin. O'Shea looks closely at seven major battles, each a turning point in its own right: Yarmuk (636), Poitiers (732), Manzikert (1071), Hattin (1187), Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), Constantinople (1453) and Malta (1565). He stresses each side's culpability and points out that Christian-on-Christian and Muslim-on-Muslim violence were often meted out in addition to interfaith warfare. Specific personalities-brutal warriors, incompetent princes, zealous religious leaders-take center stage in individual chapters. Augmenting the historical account are firsthand descriptions of the battlefields, towns and buildings today, often starkly contrasting the slaughter of medieval battle with the bucolic tranquility of these sites in modern times. However, though O'Shea is obviously conscious of the impact of Christian-Muslim conflict onmodern politics, he does not dwell on these connections; readers searching for such analysis will have to look elsewhere. Vivid vocabulary, tasteful touches of humor and a traveler's-eye-view of the Mediterranean enrich the history. An engaging glimpse into the events that shaped the Mediterranean basin as we know it today.
