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A Vanished World: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain Paperback – September 14, 2006

by Chris Lowney (Author)

32 customer reviews

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In a world torn by religious antagonism, lessons can be learned from medieval Spanish villages where Muslims, Christians, and Jews rubbed shoulders on a daily basis--sharing irrigation canals, bathhouses, municipal ovens, and marketplaces. Medieval Spaniards introduced Europeans to paper manufacture, Hindu-Arabic numerals, philosophical classics, algebra, citrus fruits, cotton, and new medical techniques. Her mystics penned classics of Kabbalah and Sufism. More astonishing than Spain's wide-ranging accomplishments, however, was the simple fact that until the destruction of the last Muslim Kingdom by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492, Spain's Muslims, Christians, and Jews often managed to bestow tolerance and freedom of worship on the minorities in their midst.
A Vanished World chronicles this panoramic sweep of human history and achievement, encompassing both the agony of Jihad, Crusades, and Inquisition, and the glory of a multi-religious, multi-cultural civilization that forever changed the West. Lowney shows how these three controversial religious groups once lived and worked together in Spain, creating commerce, culture, art, and architecture. He reveals how these three faith groups eventually veered into a thicket of resentment and violence, and shows how our current policies and approaches might lead us down the same path.
Rising above politics, propaganda, and name-calling, A Vanished World provides a hopeful meditation on how relations among these three faith groups have gone wrong and some ideas on how to make their interactions right.

A Vanished World: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain

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Product Details

Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Oxford University Press; 1 edition (September 14, 2006)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0195311914
ISBN-13: 978-0195311914
Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 1 x 6.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #122,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #191 in Books > History > World > Religious > General
- #260 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Comparative Religion
- #266 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > History

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Customer Reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars

5 star		47%
4 star		34%
3 star		13%
2 star		3%
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68 of 74 people found the following review helpful

Tolerance and Spanish history

By E. N. Anderson VINE VOICE on May 31, 2005

Format: Hardcover

This book is a super good read. It is popular history at its most entertaining. However, it is much more than that; it is a passionate plea for tolerance, and especially for religious tolerance. This is, of course, very timely, since the world today is sinking into the same religious hatreds that ruined Spain in the last centuries covered by this book.

For more than seven centuries, Christianity and Islam split the Iberian peninsula between them, with Jews forming a third major religious community. Sometimes there was "convivencia" (successful living-together); usually there was fighting, but at least there was mutual learning. Much of modern European civilization came from Islam, mostly via Spain--everything from the lute (al'ud in Arabic) to saffron (az-zafran) to the works of Aristotle and Galen, which survived largely in Arabic translations and had to be reintroduced to west Europe after the Dark Ages. For centuries, Spain was a vast, wide-open pipeline, siphoning civilization to the west. This story is repressed and hidden in too many standard histories.

I hope that Lowney's book gets many people interested in this amazing period of history. Readers will want to follow up by looking up the more serious literature. Excellent advanced histories and art studies are available. I would especially recommend the poetry: the unbelievably beautiful Spanish, Catalan and Galician lyrics that delighted the Christians, and the soaringly romantic or darkly brooding poems of the Arabic masters. (And there were, inevitably, even some poems written in both: Arabic poems with rather mangled Spanish verses interspersed.) Latin/Spanish and Arabic ideas of fine writing, as well as ideas of love and loss and beauty, cross-fertilized each other, producing some of the most musical sounds and dramatic images in all literature. Many excellent anthologies are available. Look them up on Amazon!

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29 of 29 people found the following review helpful

Wonderfully Entertaining, Endlessly Thought-provoking

By Louis Jerome on September 27, 2005

Format: Hardcover

Mr. Lowney's "A Vanished World" is a remarkable work that illuminates the sometimes expedient, often begrudging ability of the three great monotheistic religions to live and work amidst each other in medieval Spain. Written in a vigorous prose punctuated with warm humor and keen religious sensitivity, and informed by considerable research, A Vanished World illustrates for the modern reader a means by which we might consider a route toward cultural and interfaith understanding. Mr. Lowney capably compares the attitude of "El Cid," in which nobility and goodness is as likely to be shared by Moors as well as by Christians, with the dour certainty of "The Song of Roland," in which "the pagans are wrong and the Christians are right." The former reflects its composition in a polyglot Spain, where simple exposure to multiple faiths resulted in a tolerance by necessity that "Roland," composed in a far-off Christian country with little concern for the reality on the ground, could arrogantly ignore. The lesson for our own struggle to understand the faith-fueled crises of the present day is plainly made and gracefully argued. Mr. Lowney rewards the reader with entertaining and incisive portraits of the great figures who rose from each of the faith traditions, from the 12th-century Jewish rationalist Daniel Maimonides, to the Muslim Averroes, the great "Commentator" on Plato, to the Christian king "Alfonso the Wise," whose image appears above the gallery doors of the US House of Representatives, in honor of his law code. In all, "A Vanished World" is popular history of the highest order, eminently readable and thought-provoking.

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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful

Gripping, informative, surprising.

By Paul Kiernan on August 31, 2005

Format: Hardcover

As a fan of Mr. Lowney's first book, I was frankly intimidated by the subject matter of his latest book. Where Heroic Leadership was a brisk yet insightful piece about the qualities of true leaders, A Vanished World promised to expose how thin was my grasp on world history. I feared "taking my medicine."

How wrong I was!

To my surprise and delight, I found the book informative and even gripping. Using a series of short biographies of political, military, religious, and intellectual figures in Spain during the Middle Ages, Lowney identifies the threads that held together that region and that just as frequently pulled it apart. The scholarship is solid; the writing careful, balanced, and ultimately persuasive. The book's message of how tolerance can be spread and how it can be so easily wiped out is of obvious importance and relevance. Those who feel that we live in a unique age of terror and religious confrontation would do well do learn this history and to see, if even dimly, the possibilities of reconciliation and of hope.

Like other great popular histories, it does not talk down to its readers or modernize its subjects. A Vanished World invites you to explore something you knew little about and to share in a genuine intellectual treat. A good work and well worth your time.

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13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

An approachable good read

By Flippy on September 6, 2008

Format: Paperback

Menocal's "The Ornament of the World" is a romanticized account of the Moors eight-hundred year presence in Spain. Lowney's "A Vanished World" is a bit more realistic. Where Menocal sees her subject with the gloss of nostalgia, idealizing the realm of her historical figures with commemorative essays, Lownney places the subject back into the world, revealing a world with ambiguity, passion and chaos. Menocal likes to hide some of the darker human elements of Moorish Spain; Lowney is a bit more straight-forward, not letting his historical text get too cramped with ideals.

The two books might complement each other although neither might be a seminal work.

I still prefer Menocal's work because it was sheer pleasure to read her text. Lowney is a solid writer but he lacks Menocal's enthusiasm, melancholy and sympathy. But Lowney offers a bit larger picture, looking at Christian, Jewish and Moorish lives and cultures within Spain of the Medieval Era. His chapters are brief, he engages and moves on. Menocal focussed mainly on the Moorish and Jewish characters, and paid due attention to the Christian historical figures only when discussing the Reconquest. Lowney is great in that he gives due attention to all the main historical figures and events: i.e. Isisdore of Seville, Santiago, al-Tariq, Pope Sylvester, Abd Al-Rahman, Almansor, Ferdinand III, Moses Maimonides, Averroes, Ibn 'Arabi, etc...

My one gripe: I wish he had spent more time discussing and elaborating on the importance of the philosophers and mystics of Spain. His discussions were far too brief and I'm still hungry to learn more. In this, Lowney doesn't satisfy, offering bread crumbs instead of a good intellectual sandwich.

All in all, a satisfying introduction. It is very approachable as a history book, surely one, like Menocal's, to inspire further reading.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

In our mixed up world, some things to ponder

A lot of interesting information and things to think about. But it does get a little bit difficult to follow at times. Read more

Published 2 months ago by R.L.D.

Three Stars

okay

Published 2 months ago by Issy Johnson

Early Spain

This book is really teaching me about the Spanish world before the time of Isabella and Ferdinand.

Published 3 months ago by Wanda Richards

Excellent historical research presented in this book

Excellent historical research presented in this book. It offers an in depth look of the only time Islam, Christianity and Judaism coexisted in history. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Arianne Azar Carey

Five Stars

Very good.

Published 6 months ago by BRHJ67BR

A beautifully written account of what is arguably the pinnacle of ...

A beautifully written account of what is arguably the pinnacle of Spanish History. A must read for anyone who loves Spain!

Published 8 months ago by Sandra Bates

Thought provoking and enlightening

Very engaging read on a unique time and place in history - when the Moors occupied Spain. I especially found this book helpful in advance of walking the Camino de Santiago. Read more

Published 18 months ago by Maria E. Alvarez

Well researched and witty writing.

Great pleasure, new outlook. Wonderful preparation before a trip to Spain. Gives you a standing from where to observe. Great references.

Published 20 months ago by Nicolas Agust Luco Rojas

Interesting book!

Interesting book and easy to follow! I highly recommend it, especially for history majors and lovers as the book is very detailed and well written!

Published 21 months ago by MARIA JOSE CABRERA

A mid-00s throwback to historical political correctness

Having first read 'A Vanished World' nearly eight years ago, I had found it mostly forgettable but unoffensive at the time. Read more

Published 24 months ago by Damocles

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