In Moorish Spain Richard Fletcher achieved an important feat. In a brief book he tells not only the bones of almost a millennium of history, but also offers a lot to add to our understanding of the social context, both of his chosen in particular time and history in general.
Mudejar Spain do not aspire to academic excellence. Richard Fletcher declared objective is to provide a fuller account and more accurate surface Islamic State in the Iberian Peninsula that accounts offered in travel books. Also aspires to a treatment of the topic that is more accurate than the idealized position of travellers of the nineteenth century, the accounts served to create and then to perpetuate the myth.
And the received opinion that in Arabic Al - Andalus all social things were light and sweet and pure harmony is paramount in this myth. It is not so, says Fletcher, as he chronicles food repeated conflicts, you intrigues and struggles. It describes the different interests which said that the conflict, both small scale and local or higher scale and disseminated across a broad front, never went very far. When competing parties considered that they could all benefit from the interaction and trade, was suggested, largely pragmatism that keeps the peace.
His story begins in the eighth century when came the first invasion of what we today call Spain from Morocco. It ends with the expulsion of the Mozarabes in the 16th century. Meanwhile, in a fairly short and accessible book illustrates how changing alliances and opportunity for mixture of short-term gain broader viewpoints and humanitarian concerns to present a mosaic of history. And this mosaic is characterized above all by our inability to generalize. Lengthwise, it is the individual that is important.
On the contrary, it presents a series of generalized descriptions and illustrates how none of them is only partially correct. In a brief but revealing final chapter offers a generalization of their own to illustrate how dominant contemporary ideas can filter history in order to improve its own credibility. Revealing, he also reminds us how chronic history refers only to the recorded views and the life of a wealthy elite, sometimes educated. How much detail of life in the United States of the 20th century could be extracted the half of a Millennium from now if the only source was a telephone survey of Hollywood celebrities?
Richard Fletcher's book, therefore, transcends its own theme. It presents a picture round, carefully rebuilt from a huge part of the story. In such a short, of course, he may only have a relatively small amount of detail, but what is there goes far beyond what the average reader never could discover a superficial tourist guide. Style is easy but never spicy and the content has a feeling of reliability suggests that a second visit would be worthwhile.
Philip Spires
Author of mission and knot to fool, Kenya African novels
http://www.philipspires.co.UK
Migwani is a small village in the District of Kitui, Eastern Kenya. My books examines impact of economic change and social in the lives of ordinary people. They portray characters whose identity is linked to their area of origin, but whose futures are determined by the world of globaised in which they live.