Download or read book The Path of the Martyrs Charles Martel the Battle of Tours and the Birth of Europe written by Ed West and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'West puts the battle in its historical context, and shows how it set the course of history for more than a thousand years.' Piers Paul Read 732. The future of Europe is held in the balance. A Frankish force, assembled at speed, ready themselves to resist an army from the largest empire the world has ever seen. The Franks and Arabs give battle, between the cities of Poitiers and Tours. Would France become part of the sophisticated Muslim world to the south, or remain in the control of the Christian barbarians? The battle proves bloody, a clash of arms and civilisations. With the west lying in ruins after the fall of Rome, Charles Martel's victory would become the defining battle of the age, leading a chronicler soon after to describe the defenders by a new term -'Europeans'. In this gripping and informed account Ed West records the rise of the Islamic Empire, the emergence of the Franks in the ashes of Rome, and the events leading to the fateful day when Europe's future was decided close to the river Loire. Ed West is an author, journalist and blogger who has written for the Daily Telegraph, Catholic Herald, Evening Standard, The Times, Daily Express, Standpoint and the Spectator. He wrote a regular blog first for the Daily Telegraph and later for the Spectator, described by Peter Oborne as 'one of the most interesting of the rising generation of political writers'. He is also the author of a number of history books, the latest of which, Iron, Fire and Ice, looks at the historical inspiration for Game of Thrones.
Download or read book Charles Martel the Battle of Tours written by Edward Creasy and published by Leonaur Limited. This book was released on 2018-06-08 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A great collision of armies under the banners of the crescent and the cross The Battle of Tours (also called Poitiers) in 732 A.D. was one of the most significant battles fought during the last two millennia. This book is far more than just a description of the battle, it also recounts, through the writings of several academic contributors, the story of two emergent empires, drawn together on converging paths which resulted in a collision not simply between two armies, but between two uncompromisingly different cultures and faiths. Described in these pages is the violent and turbulent rise of the Franks in Europe who, by the time of the battle of Tours, were led by their warrior king, Charles Martel--'the Hammer'--whose dynasty brought forth the Emperor Charlemagne. From the Middle East, Islam was conquering and spreading its political influence, which are outlined as they bore upon the invasion of Europe. By the sixth century, Umayyad Caliphate armies had swept along the Mediterranean coastline of North Africa, crossed over into Spain and could see no impediment in the mountain barrier of the Pyrenees to their farther expansion. So France faced an invasion by an army accompanied by their families and belongings who had come to stay and rule. That army, under Abdul Rhaman al Ghafiqi, in the valley of the Loire and less than 140 miles from Paris collided with the Frankish and Burgundian battle host and was brought to ruin. In later centuries the Moors successfully ruled Spain and the Ottoman Turks also attempted to invade western Europe but were defeated before Vienna. However, after Tours never again did a Muslim army drive so far westwards and despite the sectarian blood-letting that lay ahead, for which the Europeans themselves were responsible, this fact defined the culture and dominant religion of the modern continent. Included are illustrations which did not accompany the original texts. Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their spines and fabric head and tail bands.
Download or read book The Age of Charles Martel written by Paul Fouracre and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-17 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First glorified as the Saviour of Christendom and then vilified as an enemy of the Church, Charles Martel's career has been written and rewritten from the time of his descendents. This important new study draws on strictly contemporary sources to assess his real achievements and offers new insights into a fascinating period.
Download or read book God s Crucible Islam and the Making of Europe 570 1215 written by David Levering Lewis and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2009-01-12 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning author, God’s Crucible brings to life “a furiously complex age” (New York Times Book Review). Resonating as profoundly today as when it was first published to widespread critical acclaim a decade ago, God’s Crucible is a bold portrait of Islamic Spain and the birth of modern Europe from one of our greatest historians. David Levering Lewis’s narrative, filled with accounts of some of the most epic battles in world history, reveals how cosmopolitan, Muslim al-Andalus flourished—a beacon of cooperation and tolerance—while proto-Europe floundered in opposition to Islam, making virtues out of hereditary aristocracy, religious intolerance, perpetual war, and slavery. This masterful history begins with the fall of the Persian and Roman empires, followed by the rise of the prophet Muhammad and five centuries of engagement between the Muslim imperium and an emerging Europe. Essential and urgent, God’s Crucible underscores the importance of these early, world-altering events whose influence remains as current as today’s headlines.
Download or read book Escape from Rome written by Walter Scheidel and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 698 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The gripping story of how the end of the Roman Empire was the beginning of the modern world The fall of the Roman Empire has long been considered one of the greatest disasters in history. But in this groundbreaking book, Walter Scheidel argues that Rome's dramatic collapse was actually the best thing that ever happened, clearing the path for Europe's economic rise and the creation of the modern age. Ranging across the entire premodern world, Escape from Rome offers new answers to some of the biggest questions in history: Why did the Roman Empire appear? Why did nothing like it ever return to Europe? And, above all, why did Europeans come to dominate the world? In an absorbing narrative that begins with ancient Rome but stretches far beyond it, from Byzantium to China and from Genghis Khan to Napoleon, Scheidel shows how the demise of Rome and the enduring failure of empire-building on European soil launched an economic transformation that changed the continent and ultimately the world.
Download or read book The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise written by Dario Fernandez-Morera and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-07-11 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A finalist for World Magazine's Book of the Year! Scholars, journalists, and even politicians uphold Muslim-ruled medieval Spain—"al-Andalus"—as a multicultural paradise, a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony. There is only one problem with this widely accepted account: it is a myth. In this groundbreaking book, Northwestern University scholar Darío Fernández-Morera tells the full story of Islamic Spain. The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise shines light on hidden history by drawing on an abundance of primary sources that scholars have ignored, as well as archaeological evidence only recently unearthed. This supposed beacon of peaceful coexistence began, of course, with the Islamic Caliphate's conquest of Spain. Far from a land of religious tolerance, Islamic Spain was marked by religious and therefore cultural repression in all areas of life and the marginalization of Christians and other groups—all this in the service of social control by autocratic rulers and a class of religious authorities. The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise provides a desperately needed reassessment of medieval Spain. As professors, politicians, and pundits continue to celebrate Islamic Spain for its "multiculturalism" and "diversity," Fernández-Morera sets the historical record straight—showing that a politically useful myth is a myth nonetheless.
Download or read book Lost History written by Michael Hamilton Morgan and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2008 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the major role played by the early Muslim world in influencing modern society, Lost History fills an important void. Written by an award-winning author and former diplomat with extensive experience in the Muslim world, it provides new insight not only into Islam's historic achievements but also the ancient resentments that fuel today's bitter conflicts. Michael Hamilton Morgan reveals how early Muslim advancements in science and culture lay the cornerstones of the European Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and modern Western society. As he chronicles the Golden Ages of Islam, beginning in 570 a.d. with the birth of Muhammad, and resonating today, he introduces scholars like Ibn Al-Haytham, Ibn Sina, Al-Tusi, Al-Khwarizmi, and Omar Khayyam, towering figures who revolutionized the mathematics, astronomy, and medicine of their time and paved the way for Newton, Copernicus, and many others. And he reminds us that inspired leaders from Muhammad to Suleiman the Magnificent and beyond championed religious tolerance, encouraged intellectual inquiry, and sponsored artistic, architectural, and literary works that still dazzle us with their brilliance. Lost History finally affords pioneering leaders with the proper credit and respect they so richly deserve.
Download or read book Days That Changed the World written by Hywel Williams and published by Quercus. This book was released on 2014-08-12 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The currents of History run deep and often unseen beneath the everyday ripple of events. But now and again the current rises to the surface, and the events of a single day shed an exceptional light on the meaning of the past. Such events are the subject of Days that Changed the World. Some of the 50 days described here mark the end of an era; others the start of something new. Many are the dates of bloody battles or murders; others of momentous decisions or breathtaking discoveries. All are remembered as powerful symbols of their time. Our story begins almost 2500 years ago on 28 September 480 before the Christian Era, when the Athenian navy destroyed the Persian invasion fleet in the Bay of Salamis. Had the Persians won we might never have heard the names of Plato, Aristotle or Alexander, nor recognize the word democracy. Charting 50 such defining moments, concluding with 11 September 2001 and the destruction of New York's Twin Towers, Days that Changed the World is a unique and fascinating way to portray the story of world history. These 50 history-making days include: The Battle of the Salamis; The Assassination of Julius Caesar; The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ; The Dedication of Constantinople; The Death of Muhammad; The Coronation of Charlemagne; The Death of Genghis Khan; The Fall of Constantinople; The Defeat of the Spanish Armada; The Defenestration of Prague; The Fall of the Bastille; The Battle of Waterloo; Parliament Passing the Emancipation Act; The Battle of Sedan; The Boxer Rebellion; The First Day of the Somme; The Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor; The Bombing of Hiroshima; Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream'; The Breaching of the Berlin Wall; Nelson Mandela's Release from Prison; Nine Eleven.
Download or read book History Frankish Identity and the Framing of Western Ethnicity 550 850 written by Helmut Reimitz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-06 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This pioneering study explores early medieval Frankish identity as a window into the formation of a distinct Western conception of ethnicity. Focusing on the turbulent and varied history of Frankish identity in Merovingian and Carolingian historiography, it offers a new basis for comparing the history of collective and ethnic identity in the Christian West with other contexts, especially the Islamic and Byzantine worlds. The tremendous political success of the Frankish kingdoms provided the medieval West with fundamental political, religious and social structures, including a change from the Roman perspective on ethnicity as the quality of the 'Other' to the Carolingian perception that a variety of Christian peoples were chosen by God to reign over the former Roman provinces. Interpreting identity as an open-ended process, Helmut Reimitz explores the role of Frankish identity in the multiple efforts through which societies tried to find order in the rapidly changing post-Roman world.
Download or read book The Boundaries of Europe written by Pietro Rossi and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2015-04-24 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Europe’s boundaries have mainly been shaped by cultural, religious, and political conceptions rather than by geography. This volume of bilingual essays from renowned European scholars outlines the transformation of Europe’s boundaries from the fall of the ancient world to the age of decolonization, or the end of the explicit endeavor to “Europeanize” the world.From the decline of the Roman Empire to the polycentrism of today’s world, the essays span such aspects as the confrontation of Christian Europe with Islam and the changing role of the Mediterranean from “mare nostrum” to a frontier between nations. Scandinavia, eastern Europe and the Atlantic are also analyzed as boundaries in the context of exploration, migratory movements, cultural exchanges, and war. The Boundaries of Europe, edited by Pietro Rossi, is the first installment in the ALLEA book series Discourses on Intellectual Europe, which seeks to explore the question of an intrinsic or quintessential European identity in light of the rising skepticism towards Europe as an integrated cultural and intellectual region.
Download or read book Sword and Scimitar written by Raymond Ibrahim and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2018-08-28 with total page 443 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping history of the often-violent conflict between Islam and the West, shedding a revealing light on current hostilities The West and Islam -- the sword and scimitar -- have clashed since the mid-seventh century, when, according to Muslim tradition, the Roman emperor rejected Prophet Muhammad's order to abandon Christianity and convert to Islam, unleashing a centuries-long jihad on Christendom. Sword and Scimitar chronicles the decisive battles that arose from this ages-old Islamic jihad, beginning with the first major Islamic attack on Christian land in 636, through the Muslim occupation of nearly three-quarters of Christendom which prompted the Crusades, followed by renewed Muslim conquests by Turks and Tatars, to the European colonization of the Muslim world in the 1800s, when Islam largely went on the retreat -- until its reemergence in recent times. Using original sources in Arabic and Greek, preeminent historian Raymond Ibrahim describes each battle in vivid detail and explains how these wars and the larger historical currents of the age reflect the cultural fault lines between Islam and the West. The majority of these landmark battles -- including the battles of Yarmuk, Tours, Manzikert, the sieges at Constantinople and Vienna, and the crusades in Syria and Spain--are now forgotten or considered inconsequential. Yet today, as the West faces a resurgence of this enduring Islamic jihad, Sword and Scimitar provides the needed historical context to understand the current relationship between the West and the Islamic world -- and why the Islamic State is merely the latest chapter of an old history.
Download or read book History of the Dominion of the Arabs in Spain written by José Antonio Conde and published by . This book was released on 1854 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Nobility and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII written by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira and published by University Press of America. This book was released on 1993 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the role of the nobility and analogous traditional elites in contemporary society.
Download or read book Poitiers AD 732 written by David Nicolle and published by Osprey Publishing. This book was released on 2008-02-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early decades of the 8th century AD, Islamic forces were flooding into Europe through the Iberian peninsula, threatening Frankish and Burgundian territory and raiding it with ever-increasing ferocity. At the battle of Poitiers, also known as Tours, Christian forces under the Frankish leader Charles Martel "The Hammer" (grandfather of Charlemagne) confronted a massive invading Islamic army. The Franks were victorious, effectively halting the northward advance of Islam and preserving Christianity as the dominant faith in Europe. Expert medievalist David Nicolle draws on contemporary sources to reconstruct this turning-point battle, places it in its historical context and reviews its background and immediate and longer-term historical consequences.
Download or read book The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World written by Edward Shepherd Creasy and published by . This book was released on 1852 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book A Short History of War written by Jeremy Black and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wonderfully engaging, accessible introduction to war, from ancient times to the present and into the future Throughout history, warfare has transformed social, political, cultural, and religious aspects of our lives. We tell tales of wars—past, present, and future—to create and reinforce a common purpose. In this engaging overview, Jeremy Black examines war as a global phenomenon, looking at the First and Second World Wars as well as those ranging from Han China and Assyria, Imperial Rome, and Napoleonic France to Vietnam and Afghanistan. Black explores too the significance of warfare more broadly and the ways in which cultural understandings of conflict have lasting consequences in societies across the world. Weaponry, Black argues, has had a fundamental impact on modes of war: it created war in the air and transformed it at sea. Today, as twentieth-century weapons are challenged by drones and robotics, Black examines what the future of warfare looks like.
Download or read book Early Carolingian Warfare written by Bernard S. Bachrach and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-03-08 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without the complex military machine that his forebears had built up over the course of the eighth century, it would have been impossible for Charlemagne to revive the Roman empire in the West. Early Carolingian Warfare is the first book-length study of how the Frankish dynasty, beginning with Pippin II, established its power and cultivated its military expertise in order to reestablish the regnum Francorum, a geographical area of the late Roman period that includes much of present-day France and western Germany. Bernard Bachrach has thoroughly examined contemporary sources, including court chronicles, military handbooks, and late Roman histories and manuals, to establish how the early Carolingians used their legacy of political and military techniques and strategies forged in imperial Rome to regain control in the West. Pippin II and his successors were not diverted by opportunities for financial enrichment in the short term through raids and campaigns outside of the regnum Francorum; they focused on conquest with sagacious sensibilities, preferring bloodless diplomatic solutions to unnecessarily destructive warfare, and disdained military glory for its own sake. But when they had to deploy their military forces, their operations were brutal and efficient. Their training was exceptionally well developed, and their techniques included hand-to-hand combat, regimented troop movements, fighting on horseback with specialized mounted soldiers, and the execution of lengthy sieges employing artillery. In order to sustain their long-term strategy, the early Carolingians relied on a late Roman model whereby soldiers were recruited from among the militarized population who were required by law to serve outside their immediate communities. The ability to mass and train large armies from among farmers and urban-dwellers gave the Carolingians the necessary power to lay siege to the old Roman fortress cities that dominated the military topography of the West. Bachrach includes fresh accounts of Charles Martel's defeat of the Muslims at Poitiers in 732, and Pippin's successful siege of Bourges in 762, demonstrating that in the matter of warfare there never was a western European Dark Age that ultimately was enlightened by some later Renaissance. The early Carolingians built upon surviving military institutions, adopted late antique technology, and effectively utilized their classical intellectual inheritance to prepare the way militarily for Charlemagne's empire.
