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More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionsSea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean Worldby Stephen Oshea
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:The long, shared history of Christianity and Islam began, shortly after Islam emerged in the early seventh century A.D., with a question: Who would inherit the Greco-Roman world of the Mediterranean? Sprung from the same source--Abraham and the Revelation given to the Jews--the two faiths played out over the course of the next millennium what historian Stephen O'Shea calls a sibling rivalry writ very large. Their cataclysmic clashes on the battlefield were balanced by long periods of co-existence and mutual enrichment, and by the end of the sixteenth century the religious boundaries of the modern world were drawn.
In Sea of Faith, O'Shea chronicles both the meeting of minds and the collisions of armies that marked the interaction of Cross and Crescent in the Middle Ages--the better to understand their apparently intractable conflict today. For all the great and everlasting moments of cultural interchange and tolerance--in Cordoba, Palermo, Constantinople--the ultimate geography of belief was decided on the battlefield. O'Shea vividly recounts seven pivotal battles between the forces of Christianity and Islam that shaped the Mediterranean world--from the loss of the Christian Middle East to the Muslims at Yarmuk (Turkey) in 636 to the stemming of the seemingly unstoppable Ottoman tide at Malta in 1565. In between, the battles raged round the Mediterranean, from Poitiers in France and Hattin in the Holy Land during the height of the Crusades, to the famed contest for Constantinople in 1453 that signaled the end of Byzantium. As much as the armies were motivated by belief, their exploits were inspired by leaders such as Charles Martel, Saladin, and Mehmet II, whose stirringfeats were sometimes accompanied by unexpected changes of heart. Synopsis:O'Shea chronicles both the meeting of minds and the collisions of armies that marked the interaction of Christianity and Islam in the Middle Ages--the better to understand their apparently intractable conflict today.
Synopsis:From the sixth through the sixteenth centuries, the faiths of Islam and Christianity contended for primacy in the Mediterranean world. At times acrimonious, at other times harmonious, the encounter between the two creeds in the Middle Ages provides a backdrop to much of what informs, and misinforms, public opinion on present-day conflicts. Recounting seven major battles encircling the Mediterranean--Yarmuk, Poitiers, Manzikert, Hattin, Las Navas de Tolosa, Constantinople, and Malta--Stephen O'Shea shines vital new light on the distant past while offering invaluable perspective on the two faiths' ongoing contest for spiritual and political primacy. About the AuthorA journalist and translator, Stephen O'Shea is the author of The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars and Back to the Front: An Accidental Historian Walks the Trenches of World War I. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island. What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!Average customer rating based on 1 comment:
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History and Social Science » Western Civilization » Medieval
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