This book is a wonderful thing for me. Because, I'm working on "the Relations Between Muslims and Christians at the Period of Almoraides-Almohades in the Medieal Spain". I'm very glade to the author of the book and thanks. I hope that the book would be very useful for mankind on the earht.. LUTFI SEYBAN, SAKARYA UNIVERSITY-TURKEY

Bernard Reilly would have a difficult time convincing anyone that he is an exciting writer. Fortunately for us, he is a good writer. Reilly manages to give a solid omniscient introduction to an obscure topic in just over two hundred pages. If the book were any longer it would be difficult to get through; if it were any shorter it would not be as informative.

What is unique about Reilly's book is that it takes an omniscient view of medieval Spain. Most books tend either to concentrate on Al-Andalus or on the Christian states in the north. Here, each is represented (althought the Christian states do seem to get more attention) well. Reilly spends plenty of time on the "fun stuff" of history, but also on the economic, legal, and religious issues.

As I alluded to above, this book is dry. It is, however, necessary. So pick it up, get through it, and then you will be able to move on to some of the more exciting books on the subject (Hugh Kennedy's, for example).

A clear and informative overview of both sides of the religious and territorial divide in medieval Spain. Not is the focus solely on military and political details, although these things are paid due attention; Reilly also takes in culture, society and technology to paint a broad picture of Muslim, Christian and Jewish life in Iberia. A great place to start.

Reilly's The Medieval Spains is chock full of details and dates that might daze a reader unfamiliar with the history of Muslim Spain. However, it is a very useful and thorough history, and I do recommend it for its strong scholarship and for the way it's set up: the chapters are divided into sections like general history(dates, rulers, etc.) and culture.

The account of the Germanic Gothic people of Spain leading the fight against the North African invader, set to some links to actual history and a load of made up babble. Reilly makes some huge somewhat racist (and erroneous) facts in the storyline, by somehow writing as if the native people of Iberia were black, which is a non-sensical idiocy. Ignores the fact that Iberia had been invaded for many centuries (and populated) by Romans (who fought Celtic tribes in Spain) and then by Northern peoples who populated the Peninsula and even populated a large chunk of North Africa, where Celtic mercenaries had been employed as far back as Egyptian hiroglyphics can recall and Celtic legend describe. Stupid mistake buy some who is supposed to have some actual knowledge of medieval history. Skip this book. Someone should remind him that ANDALUCIA is Arabic for "Var - Andalus" which means "The Land of the Vandals." The Vandals, of course where the German barbarian tribes who settled in southern Spain after leaving a trail of destruction behind them in their path from Germany to Iberia..... Thus the term "vandalism."

An entertaining fictional account of Pelayo, Spain's Dark Ages Gothic liberator. Pelayo was a Gothic nobleman to whom Spanish lore attributes the beginning of the "Reconquista" from the Moors a couple of years after the Arabic hordes poured into Iberia. The book imagines Pelayo slowly gatheric his Gothic comrades and pits a racially segregated band of Spanish Teutons warring against the Africans. It is readable, and Mr. Reilly is a well known expert on Spanish history. His obsession with race degrades the story, as there is very little evidence that race played any important role in any major Dark Age conflict between the Europeans and the Arabs. In fact, a hugely flawed historical position in the book is the fact that Spain was populated in the Dark Ages by (a) white Goths and (b) Colored Iberians and Romans. This is horrendously wrong, as both Iberians and Romans were a Caucasian ethnic group, perhaps not Nordic as were the Goths, but white nonetheless. Additionally, northern and central Spain were the home of the Spanish Celts, another semi-Nordic branch of the Caucasian race. The final part of the book, where Pelayo's beautiful blonde sister is forced to marry Bodo, Chief of the Astures (who in the book is described as a "black" is astoundingly wrong (well imagined wrong anyway!), as the Astures, whoever they may have been, were probably a Celtic tribe, considering their geographic location and proximity to Galicia ("The Land of the Gaelic People").