Barnaby RogersonReseñas

Os Últimos Cruzados é uma narrativa extremamente rica e cativante que começa a sua viagem pela história de Portugal no início da expansão marítima, com a conquista de Ceuta. Fala da carnificina de Lepanto, das conquistas de Don Juan, da construção de uma pirâmide de caveiras espanholas por Dragut, em Jerba, da utilização de exemplares do Alcorão pelos Espanhóis para melhor acomodarem os seus cavalos nos estábulos, da vida dos escravos a bordo das galés, bem como do fabrico da pólvora e da fundição de canhões e do ouro.
Este livro fala do último grande conflito entre o Oriente e o Ocidente, do confronto titânico - nos séculos XV e XVI - entre o Cristianismo liderado pela casa de Habsburgo e o Império Otomano. E, embora se concentre nas grandes campanhas navais e na luta feroz pelo domínio da costa norte-africana, recria o conflito que, de certa forma, equivaleu à primeira guerra mundial. Afinal, o conflito espalhou-se pelas rotas mercantis do Atlântico, do Mar Vermelho, do Golfo Pérsico e do deserto do Sara. Havia mesmo um plano para levar a guerra até às Caraíbas. Consumiu nações e culturas, destruiu dinastias, arruinou cidades e reduziu a população das províncias. No entanto, as fronteiras por que lutou permanecem até aos dias de hoje: são linhas divisórias entre nações, línguas e religiões.

Over the past four decades, Barnaby Rogerson has been fortunate to travel extensively across North Africa. He has visited with his family, as a writer and as a guide. He has delved into the richly complicated vein of history there, choosing six people from history that have intrigued him, that didn't fit into a standard historical narrative and until now have been mere footnotes of history. Beginning with Queen Dido of Carthage he moves onto a well-known general Hannibal, son of Hamilcar and a Berber general Masinissa who was to prove his nemesis. We next encounter Juba II an African King before the Romans intrude with Septimius Severus. Lastly is St. Augustine a Christian saint. All of these people had a significant impact on the countries in North Africa leaving behind ruins, legacy and myths.

Woven into the six stories of the people who formed ancient North Africa, is Rogerson's other love, travel. Details have been discovered whilst sitting on picnic rugs under the shade of an olive tree, taking groups of slightly nervous people up into the hills of Algeria to see the pyramids of Juba. Swimming off Leptis Magna, the ruined Roman city on the Libyan shore is an evocative scene, and is something that he tries to do every visit to this part of the coast, but it is also a time to catch up with old friends a uncover a little more about the place as they study the mosaics. The stories of Hannibal in North Africa, most famous for walking elephants across the Alps when battling Rome, are of a part of his life not often heard about and the tale of his final battle against the mighty Roman army that was to see the end of Carthage.

This fascinating account of his travels in this ancient landscape of North Africa is primarily focused on history, but as you'd expect, especially given Rogerson's day job, there are strong elements of travel woven into the narrative. I am guessing that there have been some liberties with the stories that he is telling, but in certain cases, there is precious little to go on to make the stories flow so well. History is often written by the victors, but Rogerson has followed each lead tenaciously to get the answers that he wanted. This book only contains six well know people, but there must be many stories from this part f the world still to be told. There are photos of the places visited scatter throughout, but If I had one minor gripe, it would have good to read more about his own travels in these lands.

A fascinating book that has a wonderful appendix covering important issues in and around the life of Aisha and other key and influential women in Medina during a foundational period of Islamic history. I worried about possible bias from the author, but it doesn't seem to affect this work much, but I need time to read it more carefully in conjunction with his other works.

OxTravels by Michael Palin

OxTravels is a collection of travel writing. It was put together to raise funds for Oxfam and contains stories by 36 travel writers. I picked it up largely due to the inclusion of Rory Stewart, author of The Places in Between]and The Prince of the Marshes. It turned out to contain writing by a number of other authors I enjoy such as William Dalrymple and Paul Theroux. Overall, the collection was excellent. While I enjoyed some stories more than others, I thought all were enjoyable at some level. The variety of locations and stories really made the book more readable and engaging.

For what it is worth, the piece by Rory Stewart was one of the stories that I found less engaging. While I think he is an excellent writer, his story in OxTravels is not what I would recommend as an introduction to Stewart.

An informative but rather one-sided book; this is more a hagiography than a history. The author admits up front that the records from that period are created by partisans and likely to be exaggerated, but he chooses only one side to report, leaving this as a warm and fuzzy extremely pro-Islam piece. It is difficult to believe that people were so incredibly noble as the ones portrayed here, and often laid up against villains. Still, there is a lot of information as long as you are willing to maintain a somewhat skeptical frame of mind. It is also true that what he represents as integrity and nobility may not appear that way to many readers. His frequent snarking at Westerners who don't understand is unneeded. And he loses half a star for his constant phrasing of sentence fragments that stand out like a sore thumb. This is also probably at least partially the fault of the editor, but an author should be able to proofread their own work and see those fragments. Overall, a decent work but with some serious flaws.½

This is one of the few biographies of Prophet Muhammad and the Rightly Caliphs that I found to be a real page-turner. It is the first bio that I have ever read that starts out with a physical description of Medina (rural garden-oasis) to Mecca (barren desert city) and how the geographic circumstances contributed to tribal world views.

The bios of Abu Bakr, Omer, Uthman, Ali, Muawiya, Hasan, wives of the Prophet, and many others are eye-opening. I'm not sure how accurate all of it is, and Rogerson himself acknowledges the historical vagaries, but it paints a very human portrait of everyone. I had a completely different idea of Ali and his sons (much more positive) after reading this book. It also clarified, for me, why the Medina clans invited Muhammad to come to their city in the first place.

I also like Rogerson's method of dispelling myths. At one point he says the image of a Muslim soldier with a sword in one hand and the Quran in the other is completely false. First of all, Qurans would have been too expensive for the average soldier. Second of all, a Muslim would never hold a Quran in his left hand (unclean), so that would mean he would be holding his sword in his left hand and how can you fight properly? OR was there a special squad of left-handed proselytizing warriors? Heh he.

An excellent book for anyone interested in the fifty years following the death of Prophet Muhammad.

a treasure chest

NCLA Review - The author asserts in his introduction, “The period covered in The Last Crusaders, between 1450 and 1590, changed the face of world history.” This work focuses on the rival Ottoman and Hapsburg empires. It also includes other powers such as Persia, Austria, Portugal and Morocco—all vying for power and control of trade routes, land and wealth. Historian and author Barnaby Rogerson presents a fascinating narrative history of this volatile time marked by conflict between East and West, the developing colonialism of Portugal and Hapsburg empires, and the struggle to conquer and control the North African shore and Holy Lands. Rogerson provides a listing of key characters, comparative timelines, family trees, some brief explanatory notes, suggestions for further reading and a helpful index. While this is a truly enlightening and enjoyable read for anyone interested in history, the question remains whether this is a necessary purchase for a church library. If your library has a strong history collection and faithful readers, then the answer is absolutely. Rating: 4 —BS

Story of Prophet Muhammad and the leaders that came after him--explains the Shiaa, Sunni origins and divide. At

http://nhw.livejournal.com/932939.html

A breezily written, enthusiastic book about the early decades of Islam. Rogerson spends a good third of the book getting to the starting point, recapitulating his earlier biography of the Prophet.

Rogerson is clearly a sympathiser, and this means that the book cannot be considered particularly neutral. But that's perhaps not such a bad thing; I am more interested in finding out what the Prophet's followers believe than in getting the historical "facts", whatever they are.

His narrative is complete enough that I did find myself taken aback at some points. His enthusiasm in the face of the facts is almost endearing. While the first two caliphs, Abu Bakr and Omar, seem to have indeed been gifted leaders - it was under Omar that the really big military conquests took place, culminating with Persia, the Holy Land and Egypt - the caliphate collapsed under the leadership of Uthman and Ali, and Rogerson's attempts to exalt Ali's reputation (as indeed it is exalted in both Shia and Sunni tradition) are difficult to sustain given his failure to keep his own regime together.

However. This was a very interesting read for me, filling in a significant gap in my knowledge which I had previously only really read in much detail in chapters L and LI of Gibbon; who is also entertaining and partisan, of course (and truth be told somewhat better written).

http://nhw.livejournal.com/932939.html

A breezily written, enthusiastic book about the early decades of Islam. Rogerson spends a good third of the book getting to the starting point, giving us a detailed description of Arabia's geographical and political surroundings in the sixth century, before we get onto the meat of the Prophet's life.

Rogerson is clearly a sympathiser, and this means that the book cannot be considered particularly neutral. But that's perhaps not such a bad thing; I am more interested in finding out what the Prophet's followers believe than in getting the historical "facts", whatever they are. His narrative is complete enough that I did find myself taken aback at some points. Rogerson appears to expect us to be shocked that one of Muhammad's wives had previously been married to the Prophet's adopted son, but in fact while the circumstances are a bit murky this is a process that appears to have been consensual on both sides; I was much more taken aback by the fact that his marriage to Aisha took place when the latter was only nine. And whatever the record of later Muslim regimes for inter-religious tolerance (generally not bad, at least, alas, compared to many of their Christian contemporaries) the ethnic cleansing of the Jews from Medina was surely not a good start.

My biggest disappointment, however, is that we don't really get under Muhammad's skin; Rogerson is too much in awe of him to make him seem like a human being. This may be unfair of me. The thing Muhammad is best known for, his experience of divine revelation, is a long way outside the range of experience for most of us, and it may well be impossible for a biographer - especially, I suspect, a sympathetic biographer - to make it comprehensible for the general reader. But I actually I felt I had got a better idea of his character from Gibbon.

However. This was a very interesting read for me, filling in a significant gap in my knowledge which I had previously only really read in much detail in chapters L and LI of Gibbon; who is also entertaining and partisan, of course (and truth be told somewhat better written).