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Jewish History (2015) 29: 9799 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015 DOI: 10.1007/s10835-015-9229-2
Parallel Histories: Muslims and Jews in Inquisitorial Spain. By James S. Amelang.
Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013. Pp. 207. $25.95. ISBN: 9780807154106.
TERESA SOTO
Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterrneo, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientcas, Madrid, SpainE-mail: [email protected]
In The Flight of Icarus: Artisan Autobiography in Early Modern Europe, a book that was published more than a decade ago but remains relevant and highly recommended, James Amelang approached the practice of artisans autobiographical writing in early modern Europe by exploring abundant primary sources and addressing the methodological problems of the genre.1 He reected on several questions that are important for those interested in cultural studies and cultural history, such as the boundaries between literature and historical sources, and on topics that are still being debated among early modernists, such as individualism and the ways in which autobiographical writing responds to verbal representations. The trope of Icarus from the chronicle of Miquel Paret, a master tanner from Barcelona, provides a prism through which the author examined autobiographical writing and developed his careful analysis of the texts at hand. In Parallel Histories: Muslims and Jews in Inquisitorial Spain, however, Amelang has moved in almost the opposite direction: he has shifted his attention away from the individual and toward the community. In so doing, he relies less on primary sources and more on a careful selection of historiographical works, from the classic study of the Moriscos of Granada by Julio Caro Baroja to the most recent studies of the Inquisition by Stefania Pastore.2
Amelang is fully aware of the challenges that a book of this kind entails. He offers a master summary of the secondary literature on the history of the Muslims and Jews who converted to Christianity in early modern Spain.
1James S. Amelang, The Flight of Icarus: Artisan Autobiography in Early Modern Europe (Stanford, CA, 1998).
2Julio Caro Baroja, Los moriscos del reino de Granada: Ensayo de historia social (Madrid, 1957); Stefania Pastore, Il Vangelo e la spade: LInquisizione di Castiglia e i suoi critici (14601598) (Rome, 2003); Uneresia spagnola: Spiritualit conversa, alumbradismo e Inquisizione (14491559) (Florence, 2004).
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Neither group was homogenous. A proper understanding of their complex realities, development over time, and intimate connections with so-called Old Christians is necessary in order to reconstruct the history of early modern Spain at large. Parallel Histories is an impressive labor of synthesis that renders the topic accessible to university students. It is exceptionally well written and rich in reections on the difculties of studying the early modern era. As a result, the book is accessible and engaging for the general public and specialists alike.
In addition to offering a condensed summary of the history of Muslim and Jewish minorities in early modern Spain, Parallel Histories also challenges at least two commonly accepted approaches to this topic. First, contrary to standard historiographical practice, Amelang studies both Muslim and Jewish converts, as well as their interaction with their Christian counterparts. The book is divided into two sections, the rst focusing on Moriscos (565) and the second on Judeoconversos (69162). Second, the book pays considerable attention to local and concrete practices, taking up the little tradition which focuses on practices and beliefs in their specic contextsthus challenging traditional studies of religious beliefs that are in the great tradition of focusing on abstract ideas and ideological conicts. As in his earlier work, Amelang remains interested in the relationship between the individual and the community, as evidenced in the chapters Communities and Individuals (4147), Morisco Expression (4754), and Identity and Creativity (12333). As these titles suggest, the book offers compelling reections on themes that are central to social and cultural history.
At rst glance, the books aforementioned division into two sections may not fulll the ambition to break with the traditional approach that keeps the history of Muslim and Jewish converts separate. Parallel histories could imply that the two groups histories followed a common trajectory but did not meet. However, the book uses an approach akin to that of Plutarchs Parallel Lives as a model for analyzing autobiographical narrations. Plutarchs narrative scheme contains two chronologically and culturally separate entities. By analyzing similar aspects of each subject, it allows the reader to appreciate the differences and most importantly the similarities between different phenomena. Much like Plutarch, Amelang teases out connections between the histories of these two groups and identies several signicant topics that allow him to bring broader trends into relief. In some ways, Parallel Histories reads like a series of biographies that explore elements such as identity, creative expression, emigration, and personal relationships.
Throughout the book, comparisons are usually not stated plainly (e.g., Creating Conversos, 77) but can be inferred from reading the two sections. Only in the epilogue, Two Histories, Parallel and Different, are comparative assessments explicitly addressed, including the fact that both communities
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were the object of collective violence (16369). In the case of the Moriscos, this violence ultimately led to expulsion. Additionally, the hostility against the latter group had a marked political valence, as members were repeatedly accused of aiding and conspiring with Ottomans. It is difcult to draw rm conclusions about the relationship between community and individualism in each group, and Amelang is careful to invite readers to reect on this open question. The desire to generate debate is another of the books strong points. This desire is in part a reection of the books genesis in a course offered by Amelang (Jewish and Muslim Converts in Early Modern Spain) and his subsequent efforts to incorporate many of the insights that emerged during that class. (Amelang is a professor of early modern European history at the Universidad Autnoma of Madrid.)
The book also has its own parallel history. It was written in English but rst published in the Spanish translation by Jaime Blasco Castieyra, Historias Paralelas: Judeoconversos y moriscos en la Espaa moderna (Madrid, 2011). The Spanish version, which includes an illuminating preface by Mercedes Garca-Arenal, contains an impressive bibliographical essay that was unfortunately not included in its entirety in the English version. The English versions Select Bibliography is an abbreviated version of the longer essay (17798). It contains an explanatory note that perhaps would have been better placed at the beginning of the book to help readers understand why the footnotes are limited to the sources of direct quotations. This procedure is better explained in the Spanish versions lengthy (164-page) bibliographic essay that discusses not only the primary sources available for this type of study but also the principal historiographical debates at stake. In the English edition, the main bibliographical references can be found at the end of the book, and the most inuential ones are marked with an asterisk. While this format makes the text more accessible for the broader public to which it is addressed, a specialist may regret the absence of denser footnotes.
These quibbles aside, Parallel Histories is an important book that provides readers with a fresh introduction to the history of early modern Spain as seen from an examination of the interaction between its religious groups and the question of what constituted religious identity. Amelang displays remarkable skill in producing syntheses while steering clear of oversimplications. His methodological sophistication and careful handling of complex historio-graphical debates also ensures that the book will be of great value not only to those interested in being introduced to the subject, but also to specialists who seek to revisit some of the thorniest and most multifaceted topics in the history of early modern Iberia.
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015