Isabel the Queen: Life and Times (The Middle Ages Series) [Paperback]

Peggy K. Liss (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0812218973 | ISBN-13: 978-0812218978 | Publication Date: December 20, 2004 | Edition: Second Edition

Queen Isabel of Castile is perhaps best known for her patronage of Christopher Columbus and for the religious zeal that led to the Spanish Inquisition, the waging of holy war, and the expulsion of Jews and Muslims across the Iberian peninsula. In this sweeping biography, newly revised and annotated to coincide with the five-hundredth anniversary of Isabel's death, Peggy K. Liss draws upon a rich array of sources to untangle the facts, legends, and fiercely held opinions about this influential queen and her decisive role in the tumultuous politics of early modern Spain.

Isabel the Queen reveals a monarch who was a woman of ruthless determination and strong religious beliefs, a devoted wife and mother, and a formidable leader. As Liss shows, Isabel's piety and political ambition motivated her throughout her life, from her earliest struggles to claim her crown to her secret marriage to King Fernando of Aragón, a union that brought success in civil war, consolidated Christian hegemony over the Iberian peninsula, and set the stage for Spain to become a world empire.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Remembered chiefly for her patronage of Columbus's voyages, Isabel I (1451-1504), who was the Queen of Castile from 1474-1504, together with her husband, Fernando of Aragon, greatly increased the power of the monarchy and unified Spain by their conquests and cruelty to the conquered. In a densely written academic biography, Liss draws on primary sources to present Isabel as a religious woman of her time, who instigated the Inquisition, drove the Jews from Spain and slaughtered Granada's Muslims because she was convinced she was fulfilling a pious duty to rid her country of heresy. Her sponsorship of explorations eventually led to the enslavement and slaughter of the indigenous populations of the Caribbean, as well as to the Age of Exploration. Liss, a visiting fellow at Johns Hopkins University, provides a wealth of detail documenting Isabel's love for Fernando, her devotion to her children, her ruthless ambition and her canny statecraft. This work will be of primary interest to historians and other scholars.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

In this magnificently researched, chronologically arranged political and social history of the queen of Renaissance Spain, the author ventures to explain Isabel's actions in the religious and social contexts of the time and to show her as a product of her environment. Liss makes no excuses for the often brutal reign and gives readers vast amounts of information so they can arrive at their own conclusions. She examines the evolution of Isabel and her realm, showing how transitory politics are, how the queen herself changed, and how history has misleadingly reflected the woman and her place in her society. Extensive footnotes would have better served the reader, but because of the organization, this work will function as a valuable reference book for the period and region. Strongly recommended for all academic and larger public libraries, especially in light of the Columbus quincentenary. For other Columbus books, see "Rediscovering Columbus," LJ 8/91, p. 120-22.--Ed.
- Clay Williams, Bluefield State Coll. Lib., W. Va.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press; Second Edition edition (December 20, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812218973
• ISBN-13: 978-0812218978
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #704,134 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Peggy Liss and Ysabel Trastámara, April 21, 2008

By 

Spanglophile (so. CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Isabel the Queen: Life and Times (The Middle Ages Series) (Paperback)

The biography is thorough, comprehensive, and current in its interpretation. Liss demonstrates the Spanish queen's mastery of power politics, political theatre, her economic savvy, and her passionate vision. Delightful throughout its long text, the book incorporates the ideological and cultural motivations behind the woman's ambition to revive ancient Castilian traditions and expand the Spanish kingdoms into a new Christian empire. Some scholars are critical of this motivational emphasis, calling it romanticism on Liss's part. It is more a clever capture of the spirit of the times. Sadly, there is no formal bibliography, though prolific footnotes steer serious students to sources in English and Spanish. There are too many editing errors, and some citations are simply incorrect, but overall,the book is a fine overview of one of history's greatest women.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Spanish History as told through the life of its most famous Queen, December 5, 2010

By 

Herbert L Calhoun "paulocal" (Falls Church, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Isabel the Queen: Life and Times (The Middle Ages Series) (Paperback)

Dense almost to the point of being annoying, this book, with its necessarily selective facts, nevertheless is a compelling portrait of Spanish history. To its credit, it shows Spain to be as complex, textured, troubling and as interesting as the land is beautiful. The genesis and the evolution of this complex culture is told completely as backdrop to the life of its most famous royal.

For me, one of the most interesting parts of the story was the historical prologue: of how Spain actually came into being. Up to the Middle Ages, Spain was just one of several countries emerging from the European darkness on the periphery of the dying Roman Empire. Spain was formed more as an afterthought than as a conscious plan to become a nation. It was an inchoate part of the scramble emerging from the debris left in the wake of the Roman decline. First the Visigoths and later the Western Goths, and then a succession of Christians, Muslims and Jews jockeyed over a wide stretch of history for their share of the spoils that would eventually coalesce into an unsteady national modus vivendi, called Spain For the next dozen generations -- roughly until the Moors were eventually ejected, in 1492 -- Spain would move back and forth between Muslim and Christian rule. In fact, it was this state of turbulence that served as the political and religious backdrop to Isabel's entry onto the national, as well as the international stage.

The main body of her story is by now well-known: that she successfully ejected the Moors; sponsored Columbus' maritime adventures; and also ejected the Jews. This book, is mostly itself a prologue up to the most famous of years of Spanish history of 1492. It explains why she did all the things she did during that period, and much more. For instance, it also gives a lot more detail about her private life, about her tormented upbringing and the palace intrigues that led to her ascension to the throne. It explains how, growing out of a neglected and a desolately lonely childhood, Isabel was steeled for the royal trials ahead; the most important of which was taking over the reigns of power from her weaker half brother Enrique IV.

However, of all the many interesting parts of the book, nothing startled me more than how similar and how utterly eerie was the Spanish treatment of the Jews in the mid-15th Century to that by Adolph Hitler (in the lead up to the European holocaust), a half millennium later.

In 1411 for instance, due mostly to the preaching of the Catholic demagogue priest, Ferrer, Jews were seen as the devil and the Antichrist: "clever, warped and doomed." As this Catholic priest put it: "They tempted people to sin and stole Christian children to sacrifice for blood rituals." After disseminating a healthy dose of this kind of religious poison (which we now know lasted for half a millennium), ordinances were issued for Jews to wear red identifying patches; not to take Christian names; not administer to gentiles; nor engage in the exchange of money -- all of which were later adopted in toto by Hitler in preparation for his "Final Solution." Inexorably, during Isabel's reign this flourishing anti-Semitism came to a head with Jews being forced to convert, leave or be killed.

How such ignorance and hatred packaged as Christian orthodoxy and ideology could have used to consolidate a Spanish national spirit in the 15th Century is one thing, but how it could have survived intact for so long is quite another; and in fact is quite scary. And Spanish history aside,that this kind of poison can grip an international community for half millennium, cannot leave one sanguine about the state of modern humanity -- and especial;ly about anti-Semitism's first cousin, skin color-based racism. Four Stars