Matthew Carr (1)Recensioni

Between 1609 and 1614, on royal orders, almost all of the formerly Muslim population of Spain, known as the moriscos, was expelled from the country. The deportation involved several hundred thousand people and, in that sense, dwarfed the much better-known edict to expel Spanish Jews, which was drawn up in 1492. The expulsion of the moriscos is referred to in general English-language surveys of early modern Spain and there is an extensive Spanish literature on the subject, but the full story has not been told in English for many years. The journalist Matthew Carr’s well-researched account of the official end of 900 years of Muslim presence in Spain is carefully written and thoroughly documented.

Carr gives a brief account of the initial Muslim conquest of most of Spain after 711, and events between the Christian conquest of the bulk of the Iberian peninsula, which had taken place by the 13th century, and the capture in 1492, by the ‘Catholic Monarchs’, Ferdinand and Isabella, of the last Muslim state in Spain, the emirate of Granada. Carr is rightly sceptical of modern imaginations about supposedly peaceful relations of co-existence (convivencia) between Muslims and their Christian and Jewish neighbours between 711 and the fall of the caliphate of Córdoba in 1031. He points to constant tensions, often leading to violence, between the three religious communities, whether they were under Muslim or Christian rule, though he focuses mainly on what happened to the Muslim population in Christian-ruled Spain after 1492.

Read the rest of the review at HistoryToday.com.

John Edwards is a historian of Spain at Oxford University. His books include Ferdinand and Isabella (Longman, 2005) and Mary I: the Daughter of Time (Allen Lane, 2016).

An excellent and exceptional study of the American Way of War as enunciated by Sherman and how it altered the concept and execution of war forever. A must, must, must read for all students of military science and amateur enthusiasts.

Beautifully written. The book was well constructed and kept my interest in both the author and his father, but I am in awe of his actual prose. The writing manages to be both classical and modern and utterly natural. I wish I'd tried reading some of it aloud. I'm not sure I can survive his books on terrorism (life is just too frightening just now) so I shall move on to the book about the expulsion of Muslims from Spain and follow my Spanish theme.

Read this over a long time because the detail and the subject were hard going at times - but well worth it. Excellently written so a pleasure to read despite the horrors of what was happening. And we have to work against a drift to madness as movements in Europe are using the same false accusations against Muslim populations in our own communities here and now. If you think the book looks a hard read then read the epilogue and I'm sure you will be inspired to read the rest.

Black Sun Rising is an engaging historical thriller set in 1909 Barcelona, a time when leftist groups—radicals, anarchists, syndicalists—were fighting one another and also fighting a national government that had begun leaning toward fascism. Matthew Carr deftly juggles several narrative threads in this novel, pulling them together to a surprising conclusion.

One thread follows Harry Lawton, a British private detective forced to leave a job with Scotland Yard due to the onset of epilepsy. Another focuses on a small group of "scientists" and explorers who hope eugenics can produce a "master race" (if that rings any bells, it should). A third involves Bernat Mata, a left-leaning journalist indebted to his wealthy father-in-law, and Esperanza Claramunt, a young anarchist whose father was tortured to death by government forces when she was a young girl and who Mata championed in his reporting. The novel opens with an anarchist bombing and moves back and forth among the many threads it contains, which means readers are engaged from the first and never lose that initial excitement.

The central mystery is rather improbable, but the strong characterizations override that potential weakness. The individuals seem real, even if parts of the mystery they're tangled up in don't. I have no idea whether Carr plans this novel as the first in a series. The ending is ambiguous enough to leave that in doubt, but I would welcome seeing where Harry Lawton winds up next.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus. The opinions are my own.

Meh. Couldn't finish it for lack of interest in the story. Plodding plot, major authorial agenda, e.g.: Catholics, bad, Muslims, good.

Read this over a long time because the detail and the subject were hard going at times - but well worth it. Excellently written so a pleasure to read despite the horrors of what was happening. And we have to work against a drift to madness as movements in Europe are using the same false accusations against Muslim populations in our own communities here and now. If you think the book looks a hard read then read the epilogue and I'm sure you will be inspired to read the rest.

I can always tell when I like a book, because as soon as I finish, I go back and read the ending again. The Devils of Cardona by Matthew Carr fits the bill.

This historical thriller set in late 16th century Spain sends Bernardo de Mendoza to a small town in the the Pyrenees to investigate the murder of the local priest and a series of nasty murders. As Medoza and his team investigates, they must fend off bandits, a rapacious local baron, and the Inquisition. Refreshingly, the book doesn't go all "CSI" on the subject, sticking to criminal investigation procedures from the 16th century.

By turns puzzling and thrilling, Mendoza's adventures culminate in a wild series of events that include a small battle and an ambush. But Mendoza is determined to bring justice to the area of Cardona and in the end, he succeeds.

A first novel but a fine one. Licentiate Mendoza, an investigating judge, is sent by court officials to investigate the brutal murder of what turns out to be a totally corrupt priest in Aragon. The plot, although it starts slowly at first, turns out to be immensely complex as the Marquis de Villareal is using/manipulating corrupt baron and his henchmen to try to acquire a huge estate/region (Cardona) that is run by a countess whose husband the Marquis had had murdered several years earlier. Stirring up the plot further are the tensions and suspicions of the New Christians, converts from Islam, Moriscos, by the Old Christians and the Inquisition. These are also manipulated and boil over. Mendoza, his adventurer cousin, his young ward (a Morisco he had rescued in Granada as a baby, and several others must figure out the complex plot that is tearing northeastern Spain (by the Pyranees) apart. A terrific read!

The Devils of Cardona sounded like a possible Name of the Rose, it's written by an academic who knows the period. Unfortunately it often read like a comic book, jumping from one action scene to the next. Still it has a few redeeming features, such as showing how wars of religion are often about something else: money and power. Some period costume details. But it was so caught up in being a thriller it can only be classified as a light work of entertainment.

Beautifully written. The book was well constructed and kept my interest in both the author and his father, but I am in awe of his actual prose. The writing manages to be both classical and modern and utterly natural. I wish I'd tried reading some of it aloud. I'm not sure I can survive his books on terrorism (life is just too frightening just now) so I shall move on to the book about the expulsion of Muslims from Spain and follow my Spanish theme.

In 1492, with the surrender of the Kingdom of Granada to the Christian armies of Isabella and Fernando the last vestige of Moslem rule on the Iberian Peninsula came to and end. Many Moslems, however, remained behind. Although they were soon forced to convert to Christianity, and many became Christians in faith as well as in name, they were never considered true Christians, or even true Spaniards. The Moriscos, as these people came to be known, were treated with suspicion, contempt and cruelty, in varying degrees over the decades. The idea of a successful and benignly pluralistic society apparently never occurred to Spain's religious and secular rulers. Finally over 100 years after the fall of Granada, in 1609 King Philip IV signed an edict ordering the eviction of the entire Morisco population. The fact that many of these people, hundreds of thousands in number, were being sent to their deaths did not trouble the Spanish authorities, who had seriously considered a massacre of the entire Morisco population, anyway.

Blood and Faith does and excellent job of describing that 100-year period of uneasy co-existence between the two cultures under Christian rule, setting the seen in detail for the final blow of expulsion. The research seems meticulous and is certainly in-depth. Astonishingly, I had never even heard of this gigantic historical ethnic cleansing. The horrific episode was unknown to me.

At any rate, Carr also does a very good job of framing this story within the context of the current mistrust of Moslems as a group both here in the U.S. and in Europe, where stereotyping and worries about Moslem immigrants working (and breeding!) to undermine European culture are now commonplace.

The book is highly detailed, not a quick read, but for anyone interested in European history, or fascinated at the way history does, indeed, seem to repeat itself down through the centuries, this is a fine book.

In April 1609, King Philip III of Spain signed an edict denouncing the Muslim inhabitants of Spain as heretics, traitors, and apostates. Later that year, the entire Muslim population of Spain was given three days to leave Spanish territory, on threat of death. In a brutal and traumatic exodus, entire families and communities were obliged to abandon homes and villages where they had lived for generations, leaving their property in the hands of their Christian neighbors. In Aragon and Catalonia, Muslims were escorted by government commissioners who forced them to pay whenever they drank water from a river or took refuge in the shade. For five years the expulsion continued to grind on, until an estimated 300,000 Muslims had been removed from Spanish territory, nearly 5 percent of the total population. By 1614 Spain had successfully implemented what was then the largest act of ethnic cleansing in European history, and Muslim Spain had effectively ceased to exist. Blood and Faith is celebrated journalist Matthew Carr's riveting chronicle of this virtually unknown episode, set against the vivid historical backdrop of the history of Muslim Spain. Here is a remarkable window onto a little-known period in modern Europe - a rich and complex tale of competing faiths and beliefs, of cultural oppression and resistance against overwhelming odds.

Political violence has become the scourge of our world and terrorism is routinely described as a uniquely modern evil. Yet however unprecedented in scope the new terrorist organizations might appear, Matthew Carr argues in this definitive history of terrorism that they are merely offshoots of a spectacular bombing in 1881: the assassination of Tsar Alexander II by terrorists . . . or were they freedom fighters? Thus begins a narrative of extraordinary sweep that Publishers Weekly called ‘engrossing, unsettling’ and the Boston Globe praised as ‘brave and wise’ and ‘a book for the ages.’ In The Infernal Machine, Carr unearths the complex realities of terrorist violence and its indelible impact on nations as different as Italy, Argentina, France, Algeria, Ireland, Russia, Japan, and the United States. Spanning over a century of world history, The Infernal Machine reveals stunning similarities in societies’ responses to terrorism despite profound political and cultural differences. Carr demonstrates again and again that the true impact of terrorism has been felt in the overreactions of government and the media to acts of political violence. This encyclopedic and diagnostic primer for our frightening times allows us to see our current predicament against a background of striking historical parallels.

Fear of the strangers in our midst, economic dependence on their labor, ethnic cleansing -- sound familiar? Welcome to 16th century Spain! Carr brings together many the vast amount of primary and secondary source material into a readable history of the expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain that echoes many contemporary concerns. I would have given it a higher rating if the book had included maps and illustrations.

Excellent overview of "terrorism" as a concept, beginning in Tsarist Russia and moving up to the twenty-first century "War on Terror". In between, Carr covers "anarchists" in Europe and America in the late nineteenth century; Baader Meinhof and other European groups in the late 1970s and 1980s; the Irish Republican Army and other Irish/Fenian groups; Italian groups including the Red Brigades; South American rebels and governmental oppressors; Zionists fighting for Palestine in the 1950s; Palestinians fighting against Israel ever since; and, well, lots more.