viii, 228 pages : 23 cm

"This book traces the political evolution of the lberian peninsula from a collection of late Roman imperial provinces to the Spanish and Portuguese monarchies of the fifteeth century. That evolution is explained initially as a product of the interaction of the geography of Iberia and the successive invasions of it by the Visigoths in the fifth and sixth centuries and the Muslim invasion of the eighth century. The character of the Muslim organization of peninsular society is discussed and its failure to achieve a stable political order is assessed." "The rival cultures of Iberia came increasingly under the influence of Europe north of the Pyrenees and, as the peninsula developed agriculturally and institutionally, acted as the vanguard of that western European culture. Nevertheless, the different opportunities offered by the peculiarities of terrain and the relative weakness of the Islamic power confronting them led to the emergence of the variety of Christian kingdoms whose partial consolidation had only just begun by the late Middle Ages."--Jacket

Includes bibliographical references (pages 210-214) and index

1. At the edge of empire. The time of troubles. A second Visigothic kingdom -- 2. The Germanic kingdom in Iberia, 569-711. The countryside and the magnates. Commerce and city. Intellectual life in a new world. Law and institutions. The classic Visigothic kingdom -- 3. Iberia and the dar-al-Islam, 711-1009. Government and society in al-Andalus. "The course of civilization is from east to west" The high cultures of al-Andalus. The other Iberia. The waxing and waning of al-Andalus -- 4. Christian reconquista and African Empire, 1009-1157. The savaging of al-Andalus. The proliferation of Christian kingdoms in the north. The assault on Murabit Iberia. The structure of eleventh- and twelfth-century societies. High culture in eleventh- and twelfth-century Iberia -- 5. The definition of Iberian autonomy: 1157-1295. The contest with the Muwahhid. The sinews of triumph. Political society under the monarchy. Thought, its vehicles and its envelopes -- 6. The evolution of the medieval order in Iberia. Society and its critics. The mature tradition and the intellectual life -- 7. The passing of medieval Iberia, 1248-1474. The Mudejars: life amidst the infidel. Towards the destruction of Iberian Jewry. The aggrandizement of Castile

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