In the Light of Medieval Spain

“The word light in the book’s title hints at the intention of the editors and the contributors alike, the desire to shine a new light on the history of Spain, a reconception that acknowledges the continuity and pertinency of its medieval past…This collection offers much material for debate and reflection, and the essays are well written, well edited, and well integrated with each other. This is an exceptional read.”–Sixteenth-Century Journal“The reviewer cannot begin to do justice (in the space allotted) to these thoughtful, boundary pushing and provocative essays, none of which would ever appear in Speculum. What binds them so as to warrant their publication together in a book? We can read them as a collection of case studies on the nexus of society and culture in medieval Iberia and modern Spain, the complex, slipppery relationship between past and present, and the textual and social agency of historical memory. The editors and authors are to be thanked for making medieval and early modern studies speak to a broader audience of humanists, not by facile analogy or drawing superficial parallels but rather by effectively employing critical vocabulary, theory, and thinking central to the broader trajectories of humanistic research today.”–Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos“What can we learn from the Spanish Middle Ages? After 9/11, the discourse on Spain’s multicultural medieval past—long the object of ideological use and abuse and, for most of the twentieth-century, at the heart of an intense Historikerstreit—is more politically charged than ever. This groundbreaking collection of essays offers a series of refreshingly new, daringly diverse, and boldly political ways of reading the Spanish Middle Ages today, making a forceful case for the continued relevance of Spanish history for our conflict-ridden world.”–Sebastiaan Faber, Professor of Hispanic Studies, Oberlin College and author of Anglo-American Hispanists and the Spanish Civil War