The last crusade in the West : Castile and the conquest of Granada /

Before 1492, the Nasrid kingdom of Granada remained the last Muslim-controlled territory in western Europe. Distinguished medievalist O'Callaghan (emer., Fordham Univ.) relates the efforts of the Christian rulers of Castile to deal with Granada's rulers for one and a half centuries. By treaty, the emirs were vassals of the Castilian crown, but relations did not always run smoothly, with frequent cross-border raids by both sides and intermittent Castilian conquests of territory. By the 1480s, Fernando and Isabel launched a concerted campaign that ended with the capitulation of Granada's last Muslim ruler in 1492. Not long afterward, the remaining Granadan Muslims received the same choice that the Jews of Spain had faced: to accept conversion to Christianity or leave the country. By the early 16th century, all inhabitants of Castile were Christian, at least in theory. This concluding volume of O'Callaghan's trilogy (Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain, CH, Jul'03, 40-6649; The Gibraltar Crusade, CH, Dec'11, 49-2306) on the course of the long confrontation in Iberia between Christians and Muslims rests on the author's thorough command of the original sources and modern scholarship, and reaffirms the significance of the religious components, among a variety of other factors, in the conflict. Engagingly written. --William D. Phillips, emeritus, University of Minnesota