Kirkus Review
A resonant and timely case study of a time when followers of the three monotheisms set aside their differences and tried to get along. Golden ages always turn out to have their rotten linings, but the centuries when a tolerant Muslim dynasty ruled over most of Spain were uncommonly free of nastiness. So writes historian Menocal (Humanities/Yale Univ.) in this unusually graceful study, a sturdy and eminently readable exploration of the "unknown depths of cultural tolerance and symbiosis in our heritage" that may help revise our view of the Middle Ages. Ruling from 756 until 1492, the Ummayads and their political descendants took a broad view of life, according equal status to their fellow "peoples of the Book," the Christians and the Jews of Spain. In time, these peoples blended and became nearly indistinguishable, a troubling matter to those powerful Christian regimes elsewhere in Europe who branded their Spanish brethren as Mozarabs, or, in Menocal's translation, "wanna-be Arabs." This equality, or dhimma, led to great things, including the flourishing of scholarship and the arts, to say nothing of "virtually unlimited opportunities in a booming commercial environment" brought on by the absence of ethnic strife. The era's monuments, the great towers and mosques of southern Spain, still endure, as does its great literary testament, Don Quixote, "a postscript to the history of a first-rate place." Alas, writes Menocal, this wonderland came crashing down with the late medieval clash of Inquisitorial Christian armies and fundamentalist Muslims, when purity of blood and of faith became the ideals of a Spain determined to root out its Islamic heritage, intolerant ideals that were soon to be transported to the New World. Contemporary Israeli poets and Arab intellectuals pine for the glories of al-Andalus, as did Federico Garcia Lorca and Antonio Machado. So, too, does Menocal.
Booklist Review
In the eighth century, the Abbasids took control of the Islamic empire from the once-powerful Umayyads. Abd al-Rahman, an Umayyad, fled to Spain and founded al-Andalus. There Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived together in relative peace and equality for centuries. The Andalusian kingdom has been largely ignored by Western and Eastern historians alike, but Menocal argues persuasively that to see the Middle Ages through an Andalusian lens reveals no dark ages among them but instead "a whole series of golden ages." Indeed, from the rediscovery of Hebrew by Jews to translations of Plato and Aristotle, the Andalusians laid the groundwork for the Renaissance. The culture of tolerance slowly fell apart, of course, and has never really returned. Menocal displays a lavish sense of place that should be the envy of many novelists, telling an engaging story in detail without ever alienating the general reader. Her seductively written history serves as both a testament to past tolerance and the hope of a peaceful future. The lessons of Andalusian history surely have never been more timely. --John Green
Choice Review
Drawing on F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous definition of the first-rate, Menocal (Spanish and Portuguese, Yale Univ.) sketches the accomplishments of a medieval society that "positively thrived on holding at least two, and often many more, contrary ideas at the same time." In a series of vignettes prefaced by a brief survey of medieval Spanish history, the author highlights key people, places, and events to tell a story now hard to believe. For centuries, Muslim and Christian lords presided over three faiths that together fostered a brilliant intellectual and artistic culture to which, Menocal insists (in keeping with her previous scholarship), the rest of European civilization from the 12th century forward owes a debt still largely unacknowledged. Figures like Samuel the Nagid, a successful Jewish general and innovative poet in the service of an 11th-century Muslim king of Granada, form a pageant of creativity born of shared appropriation and "the accommodation of contradictions." Poignant nostalgia pervades an account that boldly risks romanticizing the glories of al-Andalus. Specialists will find something to debate on nearly every (unfootnoted) page and may wince at the narrative's repetitions and formulas, but that is beside the point. For general readers and undergraduates, this is a rich evocation of a lost world. B. L. Venarde University of Pittsburgh
Library Journal Review
Menocal (R. Selden Rose Professor of Spanish and Portuguese and director of Special Programs in the Humanities, Yale Univ.) has previously published The Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History: A Forgotten Heritage, as well as other books on the role of the vernacular in medieval cultures. This book certainly reflects her deep scholarship. Menocal offers persuasive evidence that the Renaissance was strongly foreshadowed by the intellectual climate of Spain in the preceding centuries, starting in 783 with the founding of Andalusia by Abd al-Rahman, an Umayyad from Syria. The culture created was receptive to intellectual pursuits not allowed in the rest of Europe for several centuries, including the creation of impressive libraries and the study and translation of Classical authors. Menocal claims that this environment was largely a result of the tolerance shown by this ruler and his successors toward Christians and Jews and their cultures. Menocal has not given us a history book so much as a demonstration that puritanical cultures of any ilk are detrimental to the development of science, art, and literature. Her arguments are convincing even without the dark background of September 11. Recommended for all libraries.-Clay Williams, Hunter Coll. Lib., New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
