Synopses & Reviews
A portrait of the vibrant civilization of medieval Spain,
The Ornament of the World is the story of an extraordinary place and time. Both history and literature often depict the Middle Ages as a dark and barbaric period, characterized by intellectual backwardness and religious persecution. Now María Rosa Menocal brings us an altogether different vision of medieval Europe, where tolerance was often the rule and literature, science, and art flourished in a climate of cultural openness.
The story begins as a young prince in exilethe last heir to a glorious Islamic dynastyflees the massacre of his family and founds a new kingdom on the Iberian peninsula: al-Andalus. Combining the best of what Muslims, Jews, and Christians had to offer, al-Andalus and its successors influenced the rest of Europe in dramatic ways, giving it the first translations of Plato and Aristotle, the tradition of love songs and secular poetry, advances in mathematics, and outstanding feats of architecture and technology.
In a series of captivating vignettes, Menocal travels through time and space to reveal the often paradoxical events that shaped the Andalusian world and continue to affect our own. Along the way, we meet a host of intriguing characters: the brilliant and dedicated Jewish vizier of a powerful Muslim city-state; the Christian abbot who commissions the first translation of the Quran; the converted Jew who, under a Christian name, brings a first taste of Arabic scholarship and storytelling to northern Europe.
This rich and complex culture shared by the three faiths thrived, sometimes in the face of enmity and bigotry, for nearly seven hundred years. Ironically, it was on the eve of the Renaissance that puritanical forces finally triumphed over Spain's long-standing traditions of tolerance, ushering in a period of religious repression. In the centuries since, even the memory of the vital and sophisticated culture in which Muslims, Jews, and Christians once lived and worked side by side has largely been overlooked or obscured.
In this remarkable book, we can at last uncover and explore the lost history whose legacy is still with us in countless ways and whose lessonsboth inspirational and cautionary-have a powerful resonance in today's world.
Review
"[I]t is no exaggeration to say that what we presumptiously call 'Western' culture is owed in large measure to the Andalusian enlightenment.... This book partly restores to us a world we have lost, a world for which our current monotheistic leaderships do not even feel nostalgia." Christopher Hitchens, The Nation
Review
"The beauty of Menocal's work lies in her craftmanship and patience, in her eye for the illuminating anecdote, for the stray life that catches a time and its wonder. For me, the redeeming gift of the book... is the way the measure of intellectual and cultural brilliance survived the Andalusian regimes's political troubles and political breakdown." Fouad Ajami, Washington Post Book World
Review
"We are indeed indebted to Ms. Menocal for opening up an important period of history that has remained mostly a subject for specialists." Claudia Roden, The Wall Street Journal
Review
"Engaging prose and lucid insights provide glimpses into a little-discussed chapter of religios history." Publishers Weekly
Review
"[An] unusually graceful study, a sturdy and readable exploration of the 'unknown depths of cultural tolerance and symbiosis in our heritage' that may help revise our view of the Middle Ages." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
About the Author
María Rosa Menocal was a Cuban-born scholar of medieval culture and history and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. Menocal earned a B.A., M.A., and Ph. D. from the University of Pennsylvania.