Pretty good historianship

The "Myth", as the author sees it, lies in the modern notion that convivencia, or Living together, was somehow a golden time of cooperation. While it was a period of living together, it was racist, religiously intolerant, brutal and coercive. So apologists will argue that this is in itself, anti-islamic, anti-christian or anti-jewish, while in fact, they were all pretty awful. It was an awful brutal time. While the Jews, for example, fared better under the Muslims than the Visigoths, they were still treated like disposable slaves...a better disposable slave, but still a slave.

Both muslims and christians were all too happy to oppress the other and both wish to be seen as victims. The Jews, who never held the upper hand, oppressed their own people, just as did the christians and muslims, each who was as willing to slaughter their own as the other.

Not a pretty picture of any of the participants, and certainly not an Andalusian "Paradise".

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2 people found this helpful

A great book

Absolutely relentless in his approach to combating the lies of modern academia, and there attempts to sanitize life in Muslim Spain.

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1 person found this helpful

enlightening read

Whether interested in history, religion, Spain or good old fashioned myth busting, you will enjoy this masterpiece of setting the record straight.

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1 person found this helpful

Explodes the myth of the golden era....

This is a book that if it wasn’t in audio form, I would probably have never got past the first chapter. However.... hearing it narrated - it grips you and I have gained new knowledge and information on this important era - and there are many lessons that can be applied to today’s political arena.
I have always suspected that the so called ‘golden era’ probably was more of a dark period - and the author has unearthed records to back this up. As I listened to this book whilst driving - I found myself on breaks searching for more info on Visigoths - a group that had never previously been brought into my narrative on this era.
This book is a must listen - especially when we see seismic changes happening around us today in the West.

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A rant.

This author clearly has an axe to grind,,which always pollutes and poisons anything he has to say whether it be true or no. There is more than a whiff of a Joseph Ratzinger about his anti-Islamic bitterness.
If the mosque at Cordoba was built from Christian laces of worship the cathedral bang in its centre doesn’t get a mention. Perhaps our author might write a sequel to this book about how Jews and Muslims were treated subsequently by the church not to mention Protestants!!
This is an unpleasant and aggressive piece of writing with tedious quotations from various academic authorities that your average reader won’t have heard of, so they could be entirely fictitious for all we know or care.
I looked forward to an informative balanced account of a society that enriched Spanish culture and that of the rest of the world and what we get is a rant.

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An inconvenient truth

Full of information and enjoyable narrative. A must for those who have hunger for truth over fairy tales.

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8 people found this helpful

Brilliant

Brilliant, engaging, and meticulously researched, this book ought to be required reading in high schools and for any adult who wishes to be more knowledgeable about the true Islamic impact on Spain.

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4 people found this helpful

Exceptional scholarship utilises primary sources

Turns out the popularly held Andalusian tolerance is significantly exaggerated. Jews were mistreated, and Christians were castigated. Both were impoverished by the high jizzya tax, and at the bottom rings of society, with persecution becoming more or less severe depending upon the whims of whoever was leader of the caliphates at the time, Umayyad or such.

Just a glimpse of what may happen to western Europe soon.

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Compelling listening

The myth is well and truly busted by this truth bomb, narrated so well. Just one error, Al Andalus is derived from the Vandals, not Atlantis. Viva Espana!

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History With Biased Slant

The author seems to have decided to put the cart before the horse and come out fighting for a guilty verdict no matter what.

He used historical facts in an grudgingly manner to reach preconceived conclusions. Lack of tolerance, religious or otherwise, in the Middle Ages was not confined to Muslim societies, it was prevalent throughout Christian Europe, mostly in the shape of religious wars, burning of witches, etc...

In his attempt to prove his case, the author erred in producing full facts, especially those that might not support outright his claims. He even managed to come up with a number of historical falsehoods, such as the claim that Arabs didn’t know horses at the time of Muhammad. And that despite the accepted fact that Arab conquest successes were primarily attributed to the good use of the Arabian horse. And if not, can he tell us how come that today’s European racecourses are full of expensive & much adored ‘Arabian’ horses?

Finally, if the Spaniards did not appreciate at all the Muslim presence and hated historical Andalusia, then how come they kept the appellation for their southern provinces and erected a statute for Averroes in Córdoba?

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