
Kingdoms of Faith
A New History of Islamic Spain
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Narrated by:
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Bob Souer
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By:
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Brian A. Catlos
About this listen
A magisterial, myth-dispelling history of Islamic Spain spanning the millennium between the founding of Islam in the seventh century and the final expulsion of Spain's Muslims in the 17th.
In Kingdoms of Faith, award-winning historian Brian A. Catlos rewrites the history of Islamic Spain from the ground up, evoking the cultural splendor of al-Andalus, while offering an authoritative new interpretation of the forces that shaped it.
Prior accounts have portrayed Islamic Spain as a paradise of enlightened tolerance or the site where civilizations clashed. Catlos taps a wide array of primary sources to paint a more complex portrait, describing how Muslims, Christians, and Jews together built a sophisticated civilization that transformed the Western world, even as they waged relentless war against each other and their coreligionists. Religion was often the language of conflict, but seldom its cause - a lesson we would do well to learn in our own time.
©2018 Brian A. Catlos (P)2018 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
The appearance, more than 60 years after the Spanish Civil War ended, of mass graves containing victims of Francisco Franco's death squads finally broke what Spaniards call "the pact of forgetting" - the unwritten understanding that their recent, painful past was best left unexplored. At this charged moment, Giles Tremlett embarked on a journey around the country and through its history to discover why some of Europe's most voluble people have kept silent so long.
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Smug Sensibilities
- By Vino Mafia on 03-25-22
By: Giles Tremlett
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The Last Crusade
- The Epic Voyages of Vasco da Gama
- By: Nigel Cliff
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Historian Nigel Cliff delivers a sweeping, radical reinterpretation of Vasco da Gama's pioneering voyages, revealing their significance as a decisive turning point in the struggle between Christianity and Islam. Perfect for fans of Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, Galileo's Daughter, and Atlantic, this first-ever complete account of da Gama's voyages includes new information from the recently discovered diaries of his sailors and an extraordinary series of letters between da Gama and the Zamorin, a king of modern-day Kerala, India.
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Way too PC
- By Danvil on 02-08-21
By: Nigel Cliff
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The Hundred Years War
- A People's History
- By: David Green
- Narrated by: Michael Page
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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The Hundred Years War (1337-1453) dominated life in England and France for well over a century. It became the defining feature of existence for generations. This sweeping book is the first to tell the human story of the longest military conflict in history. Historian David Green focuses on the ways the war affected different groups, among them knights, clerics, women, peasants, soldiers, peacemakers, and kings.
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Instructive
- By Faycal Ikhouane on 09-10-23
By: David Green
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The Black Prince
- England's Greatest Medieval Warrior
- By: Michael Jones
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 16 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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As a child, he was given his own suit of armor; at the age of 16, he helped defeat the French at Crecy. At Poitiers, in 1356, his victory over King John II of France forced the French into a humiliating surrender that marked the zenith of England's dominance in the Hundred Years War. As lord of Aquitaine, he ruled a vast swathe of territory across the west and southwest of France, holding a magnificent court at Bordeaux that mesmerized the brave but unruly Gascon nobility. He was Edward of Woodstock, eldest son of Edward III, and better known to posterity as "the Black Prince".
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Outstanding history
- By Scott on 02-17-19
By: Michael Jones
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Sparta
- Rise of a Warrior Nation
- By: Philip Matyszak
- Narrated by: Mike Cooper
- Length: 6 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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The Spartans of ancient Greece are typically portrayed as macho heroes: noble, laconic, totally fearless, and impervious to pain. And indeed, they often lived up to this image. But life was not as simple as this image suggests. In truth, ancient Sparta was a city of contrasts.
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If
- By Anonymous User on 05-07-25
By: Philip Matyszak
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The Makers of Scotland
- Picts, Romans, Gaels and Vikings
- By: Tim Clarkson
- Narrated by: David Vickery
- Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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During the first millennium AD the most northerly part of Britain evolved into the country known today as Scotland. The transition was a long process of social and political change driven by the ambitions of powerful warlords. At first these men were tribal chiefs, Roman generals, or rulers of small kingdoms.
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Good book easy to listen to
- By Jennifer S on 08-14-24
By: Tim Clarkson
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Medieval Christianity
- A New History
- By: Kevin Madigan
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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For many, the medieval world seems dark and foreign - a miraculous, brutal, and irrational time of superstition and strange relics. The pursuit of heretics, the Inquisition, the Crusades, and the domination of the "Holy Land" come to mind.
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New Standard Text for This Period
- By Bill Martin on 10-22-16
By: Kevin Madigan
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Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun
- Hernando de Soto and the South's Ancient Chiefdoms
- By: Charles Hudson, Robbie Ethridge - foreword
- Narrated by: Gary Tiedemann
- Length: 21 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Between 1539 and 1542, the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto led a small army on an expedition of almost four thousand miles across Southeastern America. De Soto's path had been one of history's most intriguing mysteries until the publication of Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun. Using a new route reconstruction, anthropologist Charles Hudson maps the story of the de Soto expedition, tying the route to a number of specific archaeological sites.
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detailed analysis
- By Waylan Cooper on 03-19-25
By: Charles Hudson, and others
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By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean
- The Birth of Eurasia
- By: Barry Cunliffe
- Narrated by: Jennifer M. Dixon
- Length: 18 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean is nothing less than the story of how humans first started building the globalized world we know today. Set on a huge continental stage, from Europe to China, it is a tale covering more than 10,000 years, from the origins of farming around 9000 BC to the expansion of the Mongols in the 13th century AD.
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Remarkable research!
- By B. Dillon on 07-21-22
By: Barry Cunliffe
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The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome
- The History of a Dangerous Idea
- By: Edward J. Watts
- Narrated by: David Colacci
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome tells the stories of the people who built their political and literary careers around promises of Roman renewal as well as those of the victims they blamed for causing Rome's decline. The story begins during the Roman Republic just after 200 BC. It proceeds through the empire of Augustus and his successors, traces the Roman loss of much of western Europe in the fifth century AD, and follows Roman history until its fall in 1453.
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Exceptional
- By Ep on 12-17-24
By: Edward J. Watts
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Worlds at War
- The 2,500-Year Struggle Between East and West
- By: Anthony Pagden
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of Jared Diamond and Jacques Barzun, prize-winning historian Anthony Pagden presents a sweeping history of the long struggle between East and West, from the Greeks to the present day.
The relationship between East and West has always been one of turmoil. In this historical tour de force, a renowned historian leads us from the world of classical antiquity, through the Dark Ages, to the Crusades, Europe's resurgence, and the dominance of the Ottoman Empire, which almost shattered Europe entirely. Pagden travels from Napoleon in Egypt to Europe's carving up of the finally moribund Ottomans - creating the modern Middle East along the way - and on to the present struggles in Iraq.
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Great story, with a lot of unfamiliar names
- By Tad Davis on 07-02-08
By: Anthony Pagden
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Charlemagne
- By: Johannes Fried, Peter Lewis
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 30 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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When the legendary Frankish king and emperor Charlemagne died in 814 he left behind a dominion and a legacy unlike anything seen in Western Europe since the fall of Rome. Johannes Fried paints a compelling portrait of a devout ruler, a violent time, and a unified kingdom that deepens our understanding of the man often called the father of Europe.
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I really wanted to enjoy this -
- By Doris on 01-19-18
By: Johannes Fried, and others
Excellent overview of Al-Andalus
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The level of detail (extreme), the pacing of the narration (way too fast), and the audible inhalations and exhalations of the narrator, as well as the monotonous tone are probably going to drive most listeners crazy. I'm a history major, fairly informed about world history, and I still found the narrator difficult to follow and the monotony to be difficult to bear. This is the only audio book I've ever listened to at .75x speed, so that I could keep up with all of the unfamiliar names, events, geographic descriptions, and so many other details. I don't think this audio book is good for even many history buffs, and is probably more enjoyable as a physical read if you have the time. That said, it appealed to me personally, and will to others who don't mind the dryness and terrible narration.
Maybe better read than listened to
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I was most surprised by the downplay of programs. Prof. Catlos asserts much of the violence against Jews was politically, not religiously motivated, and therefore should not be labeled "pogram." I need to give this more thought.
Thorough
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well structured, easy to follow timeline
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Great Concise History, Eh Narrator....
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Good history, plodding narrator
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