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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...