The Ornament of the World

How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain

By: Maria Rosa Menocal, Harold Bloom - foreword

Narrated by: Tanya Eby

Widely hailed as a revelation of a "lost" golden age, this history brings to vivid life the rich and thriving culture of medieval Spain, where, for more than seven centuries, Muslims, Jews, and Christians lived together in an atmosphere of tolerance, and literature, science, and the arts flourished.

©2002 María Rosa Menocal (P)2017 Tantor

Barely comprehensible

The reader mumbles, mispronounces words, and stresses odd ones, in random patterns of intonation. Hopeless; I threw in the towel.

She pronounces it Izlum.

The narrator pronounces Islam as Izlum. It’s grating and unfortunately every fourth word in the book. Story is actually kinda boring too.

Excellent Book

Excellent book that reinforces my conviction that people of all faiths should have extraordinary tolerance for others to create and maintain superior societies.

Needs to be rewritten

The book contains good historical information. However it needs to be streamed and reorganised based on historical time with clear objectives. As is it hard to fellow.

Most relevant to today’s global state of affairs.

I learned quite a bit about the long history of the Iberian Peninsula, Northern Africa & Europe during Roman, Visigothic & Al-Andalus & impacts on religions, culture & conflict. I don’t think the term tolerance can be applied broadly to the interplay of the 3 monotheistic religions & societies. Also, I think the performance by the narrator could have been much better had she done a bit of research on better/more accurate & consistent pronunciations of Spanish words, names & terms.

Painful mispronunciation

The narrator slaughtered Arabic words beyond recognition. No effort was made to approximate the correct pronunciation. I found this distracting and irritating.

A Must-Read for all Medieval Enthusiasts

Sometimes, readers encounter a book that is so unbelievably wonderful, so life-transforming, that they must share it with everyone. So it is with this marvelous history of Al Andalus (Islamic Medieval Spain). The text is so well written it is like melted butter, covering a wide variety of topics seamlessly and ideas. One can almost feel the warm Iberian sun on your skin and smell the delicious orange and lemon blossoms from the Caliph's gardens as the words wash over you. Once you start, you will not be able to stop listening. A host of topics, from religion to warfare, from language to commerce, are covered. This book proves that Medieval lives were mostly 'nasty, brutish and short' in Christian Europe, but in Spain Christian kings read and spoke Arabic, and Jews eagerly read and wrote Islamic poems of love, and the followers of Mohammad translated and preserved the treatises of the ancient Greeks, and where foods and music filled lives with joy and contentment... It is also a cautionary tale about how free and open societies can so easily be destroyed by religious fanaticism and conservative intolerance. Highly recommended!

Refreshing, realistic, reflective

Beautifying written &
Painfully realistic
Mandates one to ponder over if the fate of multi-religious America & the world.

Informative and well-told

Clearly narrated, and well composed. An account of not only facts, but of feelings and ideologies over centuries.

Interesting

Well done overall. Could have been more concise. The did learn a lot and that’s what it is all about