Past & Present

If you want to see a historian of medievel Europe come unglued, all you have to do is refer to the centuries from around 400 to 1100 a.c.e. with the old-fashioned term ”Dark Ages”. Their work has beaten back the impression that nothing of importance was happening.

 On the other hand, historians of Islam are also chipping away at another misperception from old-fashioned versions of history. That is the impression that “The West” arose seemingly spontaneously, and fulfilled a would-be destiny to dominate the world due mainly to its inherent and admirable qualities. Medievel histories of the Islamic world are showing convincingly that Europe, as it gained more economic vitality and more intellectual RPMs, was doing so by feeding off the already dynamic culture and economy of Islamic peoples to the south and east.

One example of this work is from Janet L. Abu-Lughod. Over the airwaves last night, we also had NYU historian David Levering Lewis, talking about his book “God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215.” (Between you and me, Dr. Lewis talked a little bit like a historian, and is not the second coming of Eric Severaid).

Both Abu-Lighod and Lewis make the point that if Medievel Europe was not exactly the dark ages, it was at least dimmer than the califate.