Historically Thinking

Hello. In April of 1285, five Muslim riders crossed the border of the Kingdom of Aragon from the Moslem Kingdom of Granada. But they were not a raiding party. Instead of swords they flourished letters of safe conduct; instead of horses, they were mounted upon mules. When they reached the court of the Aragonese King, Peter II, […]

Hello. In April of 1285, five Muslim riders crossed the border of the Kingdom of Aragon from the Moslem Kingdom of Granada. But they were not a raiding party. Instead of swords they flourished letters of safe conduct; instead of horses, they were mounted upon mules. When they reached the court of the Aragonese King, Peter II, he gave them lavish gifts, and they agreed to enter into his service.

This anecdote begins my guest Hussein Fancy’s fascinating new book The Mercenary Mediterranean. For these five Moslem warriors were far from unique. They were part of a unique class of warriors fighting for the Christian Kings of Aragon, whom the Kings regarded as a class of military slaves, but who regarded themselves as worshippers of Allah engaged in warfare against Christians—albeit in the service of a Christian. These self-conceptions, Fancy argues, help us understand much about the medieval Mediterranean that has often been obscured by our own modern misconceptions. In the end, Fancy's book teases apart a complex knot of medieval historical problems, while at the same time erasing a series of modern "engravings" which prevent us from appreciating the past and understanding our own present.

We hope you enjoy the podcast!

For Further Investigation

The Song of the Cid, trans. by Burton Raffel

Richard Fletcher, The Quest for El Cid

David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence

Brian Catlos, Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors

Maria Menocal, Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Christians, and Jews Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain

Chris Lowney, A Vanished World: Medieval Spain's Golden Age of Enlightenment

Allen J. Fromherz, The Almohads: The Rise of an Islamic Empire

In this episode of Historically Thinking, we pull a favorite podcast from out of the cupboard. Just a year ago, more or less, we had a conversation with Alex Mikaberidze, Associate Professor of History at Louisiana State University in Shreveport. Dr. Mikaberidze has written prolifically on the wars that engulfed Europe between 1793 and 1815, the “Revolutionary Wars” (1792-1802) and the […]

In this episode of Historically Thinking, we pull a favorite podcast from out of the cupboard. Just a year ago, more or less, we had a conversation with Alex Mikaberidze, Associate Professor of History at Louisiana State University in Shreveport. Dr. Mikaberidze has written prolifically on the wars that engulfed Europe between 1793 and 1815, the "Revolutionary Wars" (1792-1802) and the "Napoleonic Wars" (1803-1815). But he's now focusing his research on the consequences (and the battlefields) of those wars outside of Europe–in the Western Hemisphere, the Middle East, and in South Asia. If you haven't heard it before, give a listen. And if you have heard it before, well, see if you've forgotten anything.

This is a tribute edition from the archives of Historically Speaking. On this last day of Women’s History Month, I’m thinking of my great-grandmother, Eugenia Zambone. She was an immigrant from Italy who began by selling needles, thread, and sewing necessities from the family’s rental; eventually she was the proprietress of a small number of department […]

This is a tribute edition from the archives of Historically Speaking. On this last day of Women's History Month, I'm thinking of my great-grandmother, Eugenia Zambone. She was an immigrant from Italy who began by selling needles, thread, and sewing necessities from the family's rental; eventually she was the proprietress of a small number of department stores in the towns of southern New Jersey.

As Vicki Howard reminds us in her new book, From Main Street to Mall: The Rise and Fall of the American Department Store, it used to be that America was filled with department stores like those owned by my great-grandmother. And stores like these were important centres of community life.

Vicki Howard has already written on the history of the wedding industry. Now she and I talk about the department store, how they began, what they offered people that hadn't existed before, and how they were undone by the same forces that created them.

For Further Reading

Vicki Howard, Brides, Inc.: American Weddings and the Business of Tradition

Michael J. Lisicky, Wanamaker's: Meet Me at the Eagle

For your late-night browsing pleasure: The Department Store Museum

It’s highly appropriate that in the week before Easter, and in Women’s History Month, we focus not just on religious history, but on the history of a group of Roman Catholic women–those women that everyone else refers to (almost always incorrectly) as “nuns”. In this instance, we’re talking with Mary Beth Fraser Connolly about her […]

It's highly appropriate that in the week before Easter, and in Women's History Month, we focus not just on religious history, but on the history of a group of Roman Catholic women–those women that everyone else refers to (almost always incorrectly) as "nuns". In this instance, we're talking with Mary Beth Fraser Connolly about her book Women of Faith: The Chicago Sisters of Mercy and the Evolution of Religious Community.

It might not seem that such communities have much to do with women’s history, or any other sort of history. In fact, it's interesting how peripheral we might think women's religious communities are to this or any other society. And this instinctive reaction is true for many historians as well. Fraser Connolly writes that previously subdisciplines of history has “considered” sisters or nuns “women of little consequence to the advancement of women in society and in churches.” In Women of Faith Fraser Connolly makes a comprehensive assault on this position. Among other things, she argues that “asking new questions about the choices women made based upon their faith…enriches our understanding of the past, whether speaking of all women, Roman Catholic women, or all of society.” She also explains how the Sisters were the foundation of the American Catholic world; and how while the 1960's were a watershed in the history of American Catholic culture, they can only be understood by what was happening in the preceding four decades.

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This is week is the second of our conversations with Joseph Amato, Professor Emeritus of History at Southwest State University in Marshall, Minnesota, who has been aptly termed “an academic maverick of the first order.” Last week, we discussed Amato’s refreshing perspective on local history. This week, we turn to Amato’s approach to family history. Here’s […]

This is week is the second of our conversations with Joseph Amato, Professor Emeritus of History at Southwest State University in Marshall, Minnesota, who has been aptly termed “an academic maverick of the first order.” Last week, we discussed Amato’s refreshing perspective on local history. This week, we turn to Amato’s approach to family history.

Here’s how Amato begins the preface to his book Jacob’s Well, both a history of his family and a rethinking of the discipline of family history:

Family is the well of self. It makes childhoods, imprints memories, and offers models for a lifetime. Doing family history is a way to investigate its powers, to take control of personal history. It provides a distinct type of self-knowledge, which is timely and even indispensable in this age of abstractions, ideological battles, and mass culture…

For Amato, family history becomes an exploration of one's own consciousness and personhood. It's not collecting names of your great-grandfathers, chronicling how rich your family once was, or how poor your family once was. It is the means that history offers us–uniquely different from what philosophy or theology or literature offers–by which we are able to understand our soul.