The Cross and the Crescent
The Dramatic Story of the Earliest Encounters Between Christians and Muslims
1st Edition
Published on 4. March 2004
208 pages
978-0-14-193929-2 (ISBN)
Description
A short, brilliant account of the relations between Islam and Christianity from Muhammad to the Reformation. Fletcher argues that though there were trading and cultural interactions between Islam and Christianity during the period when Arabs controlled most of the Mediterranean world, neither side was remotely interested in the religion of the other. "Christian and Moslem lived side by side in a state of mutual religious aversion. Given these circumstances, if religious passions were to be stirred up, confrontation would probably be violent." He shows how religious misunderstanding and antagonism between "the peoples of the book" has been present since their earliest encounters.
Reviews / Votes
His delightful ingenue receptivity amused and won the trust of elderly, dispossessed aristocrats, whose lives had been spent in quietest retreat from brutish nationalism and cultural pauperization. His delicious memoir admires their fortitude, evokes their dignified isolation with elegiac tenderness, and shows him to be a connoisseur of human types. Bassett's perfect observations haunted, charmed and inspired me. -- Richard Davenport-Hines * Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
File size
3,71 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-14-193929-2 (9780141939292)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Richard Fletcher
The Cross and the Crescent
The Dramatic Story of the Earliest Encounters Between Christians and Muslims
Book
03/2004
Penguin Books Ltd
€32.37
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Person
Richard Fletcher is one of Britain's most distinguished medieval historians, and for many years taught at the University of York. His previous books include THE QUEST FOR EL CID, which won the Wolfson Award and the Los Angeles Times History Prize; THE CONVERSION OF EUROPE; and BLOODFEUD.
