ENGLISH

In the Light of Medieval Spain: Islam, the West, and the Relevance of the Past (The New Middle Ages)

By David Coleman , Simon R. Doubleday , Giles Tremlett

Book information

Year
2008
ISBN
1403983895, 9781403983893, 9780230614086
Open Library ID
OL11642914M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
1 MB (1374901 bytes)
Edition
First Edition
Pages
228\238
Topic
History
Scanned
yes
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

If the idea of the medieval has been widely deployed in the colonial and neocolonial West as a marker of cultural backwardness, the Anglo-American perspective has often regarded Spain as part of a historically underdeveloped world and as a late-comer to Protestant/Enlightenment traditions of democracy, tolerance, and progress. Yet the many cultural dimensions of medieval Iberia make it pressingly relevant to current critiques of western modernity. This volume, which brings into dialogue historians and literary scholars in medieval and modern Iberian cultures, interrogates the contemporary significance of the distant Spanish past, particularly in regard to tensions in the relationship between the West and Islam. Rejecting an illusory space of neutrality, the search for relevance is envisioned as an ethically and politically necessary form of inquiry.

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