Andalusia: ancient homeland of the mysterious Iberians, birthplace of Roman emperors, seedbed of modern Anarchism, and unmarked gravesite of Spain's greatest lyric poet. Perhaps most importantly, Andalusia is home to the city of Granada, where a hybrid culture composed of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian traditions gave rise to an intellectual vanguard whose achievements can be compared only with those of classical Athens, Ming China, or Renaissance Italy.



Granada resident Steven Nightingale excavates the rich past of his adopted city and its surrounding countryside, finding there a lavish story of utopian ecstasy, political intrigue, and finally anguish. Part of that region in southern Spain named by its Islamic rulers "Al–Andalus," medieval Granada witnessed a flourishing of poetry in several languages, the first modern translations of Greek philosophy, the birth of algebra, and the construction of architectural masterpieces such as the Alhambra and the Generalife. Yet with Ferdinand and Isabella's sack of Granada in 1492, regarded as the culmination of the Reconquista, which sought to reclaim Spain for the Vatican, a Catholic mythology of Spain began to erode Granada's centuries–old reputation as an artistically vital haven for multiple ethnic and religious groups.



Linking the disastrous afterlife of the Reconquista to the Catholic nationalism of the Franco regime—whose execution of Granadan poet Federico Garcia Lorca symbolizes the suppression of Andalusia's cultural heritage—Nightingale demonstrates the extent to which this Catholic triumphalism also obscured the source of much cultural wealth bequeathed by Al–Andalus to Christian Europe. Nightingale's own account of the region's medieval zenith recovers the intellectual pageantry and aesthetic splendor of this astounding period in Western history and the marvelous city that was its cultural center.

Granada is one of the iconic cities of the world. It stands for the culture of Al-Andalus, composed of Moslems, Jews, and Christians, who lived together in the legendary convivencia of the Spanish Middle Ages. Al-Andalus gave rise to an intellectual vanguard whose achievements can be compared only with those of classical Athens, Ming China, or Renaissance Italy. Granada resident Steven Nightingale excavates the rich past of his adopted city and of Al-Andalus, finding a story of utopian ecstasy, political intrigue, religious exaltation, and scorching anguish. Granada witnessed a flourishing of poetry, and constructed the Alhambra, one of the most celebrated buildings in Europe. Al-Andalus brought to Europe the first modern translations of Greek philosophy, advanced mathematics, science, medicine and music, as well as transcendent mystical texts. Yet Ferdinand and Isabel's conquest of Granada in 1492 meant the end of the culture whose achievements would empower and enrich the rest of Europe. In the story of Granada, Nightingale finds our story, all its violence and possibility and beauty, its spiritual longing and artful dreams. It is a story that shows how we can work together, and what we can create together. And how our best work can be destroyed.

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