Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 320 pages
• Published by: Walker & Company May 30, 2006
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0802714986
• ASIN: B0013JD9GE
• Book Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Weighs: 1.7 pounds

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In this elegant, fast-paced, and judicious cultural and religious history, journalist O'Shea, author of The Perfect Heresy, provides a remarkable glimpse into the origins of the conflicts between Christians and Muslims as well as their once peaceful coexistence. He focuses on seven military battles—Yarmuk A.D. 636), Poitiers (732), Manzikert (1071), Hattin (1187), Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), Constantinople (1453) and Malta (1565)—between Christians and Muslims as the high-water marks of their attempts to shape the Mediterranean ("sea of faith") world of the Middle Ages. O'Shea vividly captures and recreates not only the enmity between the two religions but also the sectarian rivalries and political intrigues within each religion. Yet the relationship between Christianity and Islam was marked not only by bloody Crusades and wars of conquest. As O'Shea so eloquently points out, Christians and Muslims also experienced long periods of rapprochement, signaled by the long peace at Córdoba in the early Middle Ages and in the intellectual and social flourishing at Toledo and Palermo in the 11th century. O'Shea's marvelous accomplishment offers an unparalleled glimpse of the struggles of each religion to establish dominance in the medieval world as well as at the strategies for living together that the religions enacted as they shared the same territory. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Review
Praise for Sea of Faith:
“An absorbing, crisply written chronicleIf you’re expecting an argument on behalf of peaceful coexistence or, alternatively, a call to alarm on the order of Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,” the colorful, if often gruesome, story that O’Shea narrates with considerable panache offers no easy answers to our current predicament.”—Los Angeles Times
“Admirably evenhanded.”—Dallas Morning News
“A tour de forcea gorgeous, necessary book, punctuated with passages of dark, luminous, symbolic power. If, as it appears, we have entered a new ‘dark ages,’ only by facing the worst about what seems to offer hope to believers can we forge new hopes—tolerant places where convivencia, as embodied in this superb book, flourishes once again.”—Christian Science Monitor
“A gripping account of Christianity and Islam’s first tortured millennium of combat and coexistence. Vivid vocabulary, tasteful touches of humor and a traveler’s-eye view of the Mediterranean enrich the history. An engaging glimpse into the events that shaped the Mediterranean basin as we know it today.”—Kirkus Reviews
“O’Shea’s marvelous accomplishment offers an unparalleled glimpse of the struggles of each religion to establish dominance in the medieval world as well as of the strategies for living together that the religions enacted as they shared the same territory.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
  --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Reader Reviews
This review is from: Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World (Hardcover) Having finally read "A Perfect Heresy", O'Shea's excellent but all-too-brief look into the Albigensian Crusade, I bought this based on the dust jacket synopsis. I found it to be an informative and compelling look at the contacts--both combative and cooperative--between Islam and Christianity throughout the dark ages, medieval era, and beyond. O'Shea's narrative focuses on the subsequent interactions between expanding Islam and embattled (for a time) Christianity in the regions surrounding the Mediterranean, hence the "Sea of Faith" of the title. The story begins with the expansion of Islam in the 7th century following Muhammed's death and finishes with the "final" conflict between Muslims and Christians in the Mediterranean at Malta in the 16th century. In between O'Shea explores many key battles--Yarmuk in AD 636, Manzikert, Hattin, Constantinople, etc., delving into not just the primary conflicts but the various factions dividing each side. An ugly truth glossed over in subsequent legendary accounts on both sides is the fact that in many of these conflicts (and others leading up to them) the two sides were hardly united against their cross-confessional foe. Umayyad vs. Abbasid, Catholic vs. Orthodox Christian, Arab vs. Berber vs. Turk, O'Shea deftly explains the complex back-stories to these near-mythical conflicts. O'Shea also shines when he explores the "conviviencia" or periods of cooperation and tolerance that also marked Muslim-Christian interactions from 600 onward. Cordoba under the Umayyads and Palermo under the Normans are excellent examples of how these periods of peace produced cultural explosions of phenomenal wealth and splendor, with everything from poetry to science thriving under these conditions. Overall this is a well-written and well-researched look into a topic of obvious relevance to modern times. If we have any hope of reaching peace in the Middle East, we (and our political leaders) are going to try to figure out how to re-create a metaphorical Cordoba while avoiding a metaphorical Poitiers in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Anyone looking for a well written and engaging introduction into past interactions between these two faiths that might better help them understand today's conflicts is encouraged to buy this book. I subtracted one star for the many puzzling typos in this edition and for the fact that O'Shea, in his rush to cover such a wide topic and broad time scale, gives short shrift to some of the more prominent personalities involved in these conflicts (Richard the Lionheart, Louis IX, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, and Tamerlane just to name a few).