About this item
An in-depth portrait of the Crusades-era Mediterranean world, and a new understanding of the forces that shaped it. In Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors, the award-winning scholar Brian Catlos puts us on the ground in the Mediterranean world of 1050-1200. We experience the sights and sounds of the region just as enlightened Islamic empires and primitive Christendom began to contest it. We learn about the siege tactics, theological disputes, and poetry of this enthralling time. And we see that people of different faiths coexisted far more frequently than we are commonly told. Catloss meticulous reconstruction of the era allows him to stunningly overturn our most basic assumption about it: that it was defined by religious extremism. He brings to light many figures who were accepted as rulers by their ostensible foes. Samuel B. Naghrilla, a self-proclaimed Jewish messiah, became the force behind Muslim Granada. Bahram Pahlavuni, an Armenian Christian, wielded power in an Islamic caliphate. And Philip of Mahdia, a Muslim eunuch, rose to admiral in the service of Roger II, the Christian "King of Africa." What their lives reveal is that, then as now, politics were driven by a mix of self-interest, personality, and ideology. Catlos draws a similar lesson from his stirring chapters on the early Crusades, arguing that the notions of crusade and jihad were not causes of war but justifications. He imparts a crucial insight: the violence of the past cannot be blamed primarily on religion.
About the Author
Brian Catlos spent over a decade living and travelling in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia before completing his PhD (Medieval Studies, Toronto) and joining the History Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is a former President of the American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain, Co-Director of the Mediterranean Seminar (www.mediterraneanseminar.org) , and of the University of California Multi-Campus Research Project on Mediterranean Studies, an affiliate of the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, an associate of Spain's national research council (CSIC) , and a member of several journal boards. He has published extensively on religious minorities and Christian-Muslim-Jewish relations in medieval Europe and the Islamic world, and has received numerous grants and awards, including an NEH Faculty Fellowship, and a Governor-General of Canada's Gold Medal. His first academic book, The Victors and the Vanquished, was awarded two prizes by the American Historical Association, and recent articles, 'The de Reys' and 'Accursed, Superior Men', won the Bishko Prize and the Webb Prize, respectively. In 2009 he was appointed to Religious Studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, with affiliations with Jewish Studies, History and Humanities;in 2011 he was appointed a Research Associated in Humanities at UC Santa Cruz. He appeared in the PBS documentary 'Cities of Light', and also writes travel guide books. For more, see www.brianacatlos.com.
