That book is likely to be correct that it is a myth that "al-Andalus" was "a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony" and that in reality being a non-Muslim must have caused many disadvantages.
Nevertheless, even without examining any evidence from that book, it is beyond any reasonable doubt that the non-Muslims had been much better treated under the Arab rulers than the non-Christians were treated after the territory had been reconquered by the Spanish kings.
For this, no other evidence is necessary beyond the fact that even if the non-Muslims might have not "lived in harmony", they certainly had lived there in great numbers, while soon after the reconquest the non-Christians no longer lived there (this is especially obvious from the large number of Sephardim who had to live in other countries after that).
Another thing that is true beyond any reasonable doubt is what is said in the parent article, i.e. that regardless whether the Arab conquest was good or bad for the local people, for Europe as a whole the Arab presence in Spain has been extremely useful, both as the source of improved knowledge in chemistry, mathematics and astronomy, due to their own research of various Arab and Muslim authors, and as the source of many ancient Latin and Greek works that had been lost in Europe.
> it is beyond any reasonable doubt that the non-Muslims had been much better treated under the Arab rulers than the non-Christians were treated after the territory had been reconquered by the Spanish kings.
Yeah, Spain the kingdom didn't really treat Muslims all that great, one just have to look at the "Expulsion of the Moriscos" in 1609 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Moriscos). Hard to beat that when it comes to treatment of entire populations.
Why would it be symmetric? This is like if North American natives had successfully expelled the Europeans after some amount of time, and then saying that the natives were meaner to the Europeans than vice versa. Wouldn’t expulsion be justified from the North American native’s perspective?
Note that there was about 9 centuries between the Umayyad conquest of Iberia (8th century) and the explulsion of Moriscos (17th century). So the analogy with North American natives would be something like - if somehow the Native Americans win political/military control in the 23th century (9 centuries after the arrival of the Europeans) and then decide that all non-native Americans will have to leave the country to wherever their ancestors came from - do you feel that would be justified?
From the native perspective that would absolutely be justified. At the same time from the European perspective they should resist being expelled (just as the equivalent people in Spain should have and probably did resist being expelled in their time).
As a side note, I feel a lot of people have a hard time processing conflicting perspectives and instead project their own moral views as a uniform perspective onto everyone at once, which does not produce a useable model of reality IMO.
> I feel a lot of people have a hard time processing conflicting perspectives and instead project their own moral views as a uniform perspective onto everyone at once
Thanks for putting into words something I've been feeling for a long time! It's like people think that conflict is unnatural, when really it is one of the most fundamental aspects of nature.
A part of the ancient Latin and Greek literature has been preserved by the Byzantine Empire and another part by the Arabs.
The Arabs actually had much more interactions with the Western Europeans than the latter had with the Byzantines, so much more old books have reached Europe through the Arabs. Most Byzantine books have reached Europe only after the Fall of Constantinople and the invention of the movable-type printing press, when their importance has soon become more historical than practical, due to the rapid advances that have started at that time.
Besides the ancient Latin and Greek books, the Arabs have also passed knowledge that had come from India and Persia and also the results of original research that went beyond what had been transmitted from others, especially in chemistry and mathematics, hence words like alchemy and algebra.
Muslims, not Arabs. Also you are mistaken about Arabs passing Persian knowledge. Initially invading Arabs were given to destroying books. It was Muslim Persians who did most of the translation, and subsequently elaboration of the ancient world’s thinking into the Muslim civilization and from there to Europe. And yes, they wrote in Arabic just like Isaac Newton wrote Principia in Latin. And most of us now write in English, but are we Anglos?
p.s. important to amend this here to note that certainly, Muslim civilization had many towering Arab (and non-Persian non-Arab) intellects as well. In my personal opinion, the correct terminology would be Muslim and Islamic (since it certainly was that) instead of Arab or Arabic. The latter apparently is favored by European “Orientalists” but it is both incorrect and further it is divisive.
I agree than many of the most important scientific advances in the Muslim world were due to Persians, like the classification of the chemical substances made by Avicenna, who has written in Arabic, as you say.
However, the works of Avicenna and others like him have reached Europe through Arabs, frequently through Spain.
If you know of another path to Europe for the Persian Arabic works, I am curious to hear which is it.
This book was published by Regnery in their ISI Books line and if you look at the rest of their catalog (https://www.regnery.com/books/isi-books/) there's a certain theme that's overwhelming. To be slightly more explicit, when so many of their other books are so obviously by and for right wing culture warriors, why would they have published this one if it was not?
(And if you look outside that particular imprint the publisher's politics become even more obvious)
If you check the bibliography of this article's author, his latest book seems to be a wistful longing for Che Guevara and the Cuban Revolution.
The greatest "myth" I'm seeing in this thread is the idea of objective pop history writers (or readers). All of these works are goods being sold to a consumer audience. Perhaps in decades past, many consumers favored works that expanded or challenged their worldviews. But in today's zeitgeist, most consumers want to read things that reinforce how they view the world already.
> There are some conservative books there, but also general topics too.
And that's exactly what to expect from a conservative library! There's no left-wing book, at all, in the shelves and that's a pretty clear sign.
We can't know for sure if the “general topics” are themselves conservative, but the complete lack of left-wing PoV in collection, that doesn't bode well.
but the claim wasn't that is was a "a conservative library" (consisting or specialising in having of a large amount of conservative titles, presumably for conservatives) - but that it (or a large selection of its titles) caters to RW culture warriors, to the extent that you ask "why would they have published this one if it was not?", i.e. it cannot be merely conservative, but assumed RW-extreme.
Of course the term “right wing culture warrior” is questionable, but when your library is so right leaning that its political orientation is obvious after just glancing at a handful of books cover then maybe this term is kind of apt.
It turns out that the page I linked to has more than just pictures of the covers, and if you click thru you can find the publisher's blurbs which are brief descriptions of the contents spun in a way favorable to them.
As an example, there's this biography of William F. Buckley Jr :https://www.regnery.com/9781610171557/william-f-buckley-jr/ whose blurb reads in part "William F. Buckley Jr.: The Maker of a Movement tells the incredible story of a man who could have been a playboy, sailing his yacht and skiing in Switzerland, but who chose to be the St. Paul of the conservative movement, carrying the message far and wide." (and makes it sound more more like a hagiography, but let's leave that aside).
Then there's https://www.regnery.com/9781610171458/just-right/ with this excerpt from the blurb: "This memoir is full of colorful stories from a man who has been present at nearly every major event of the modern conservative movement and has done it all in a remarkable, multifaceted career."
I said "obvious" regarding the publisher overall, not just their imprint. You'll notice they have a "Political Books" category (https://www.regnery.com/books/political-books/) in which you might find that their 'Featured Books' include "Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America" (by Ted Cruz, and please refer back to my comment re: Santorum), "Hide Your Children: Exposing the Marxists Behind the Attack on America's Kids" , "When China Attacks: A Warning to America", "The End of Woman: How Smashing the Patriarchy has Destroyed Us", and "Domestic Extremest: A Practical Guide to Winning the Culture War".
If that's not enough for you, then please consider the publisher's own words: "Want to read conservative books that drive headlines, start debates, and change the course of history? That’s what Regnery books have been doing since 1947." which doesn't leave much room for ambiguity.
specialising in conservative books isn't the same thing as catering primarily to "right wing culture warriors", in the sense that any book from their collection can be assumed as biased.
I think you're conflating 'primarily' and 'exclusively'. Furthermore if you consider their 'general topics' books and check up on their authors you might notice a certain theme.
