{"title":"David S H Abulafia","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"frederick-ii-a-medieval-emperor-book-david-s-h-abulafia-9780195080407","title":"Frederick II: a Medieval Emperor","description":"Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily, King of Jerusalem, has, since his death in 1250, enjoyed a reputation as one of the most remarkable monarchs in the history of Europe. His wide cultural tastes, his apparent tolerance of Jews and Muslims, his defiance of the papacy, and his supposed aim of creating a new, secular world order make him a figure especially attractive to contemporary historians. But as David Abulafia shows in this powerfully written biography, Frederick was much less tolerant and far-sighted in his cultural, religious, and political ambitions than is generally thought. Here, Frederick is revealed as the thorough traditionalist he really was: a man who espoused the same principles of government as his twelfth-century predecessors, an ardent leader of the Crusades, and a king as willing to make a deal with Rome as any other ruler in medieval Europe. Frederick's realm was vast. Besides ruling the region of Europe that encompasses modern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, eastern France, and northern Italy, he also inherited the Kingdom of Sicily and parts of the Mediterranean that include what are now Israel, Lebanon, Malta, and Cyprus. In addition, his Teutonic knights conquered the present-day Baltic States, and he even won influence along the coasts of Tunisia. Abulafia is the first to place Frederick in the wider historical context his enormous empire demands. Frederick's reign, Abulafia clearly shows, marked the climax of the power struggle between the medieval popes and the Holy Roman Emperors, and the book stresses Frederick's steadfast dedication to the task of preserving both dynasty and empire. Through the course of this rich, groundbreaking narrative, Frederick emerges as less of the innovator than he is usually portrayed. Rather than instituting a centralized autocracy, he was content to guarantee the continued existence of the customary style of government in each area he ruled: in Sicily he appeared a mighty despot, but in Germany he placed his trust in regional princes, and never dreamed of usurping their power. Abulafia shows that this pragmatism helped bring about the eventual transformation of medieval Europe into modern nation-states. The book also sheds new light on the aims of Frederick in Italy and the Near East, and concentrates as well on the last fifteen years of the Emperor's life, a period until now little understood. In addition, Abulfia has mined the papal registers in the Secret Archive of the Vatican to provide a new interpretation of Frederick's relations with the papacy. And his attention to Frederick's register of documents from 1239-40--a collection hitherto neglected--has yielded new insights into the cultural life of the German court. In the end, a fresh and fascinating picture develops of the most enigmatic of German rulers, a man whose accomplishments have been grossly distorted over the centuries.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49575330349329,"sku":"GOR005706917","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50097225629969,"sku":"GOR012008371","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50289168023825,"sku":"CIN0195080408VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52102627295505,"sku":"CIN0195080408G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0195080408.jpg?v=1750693486"},{"product_id":"spain-and-1492-book-david-s-h-abulafia-9781873041215","title":"Spain and 1492","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49593607160081,"sku":"GOR005565496","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1873041217.jpg?v=1751380420"},{"product_id":"frederick-ii-book-david-s-h-abulafia-9780713990041","title":"Frederick II","description":"This is a biography of Frederick II (1194-1250), King of Sicily, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Jerusalem, concentrating on the complete history of his kingdoms and placing his reign in a wide context. David Abulafia presents Frederick as less tolerant, less far-sighted in his cultural interests and less ambitious to break the power of the Roman Church than has previously been thought. Until now too, the success of Frederick's enemies in denigrating him has grossly distorted the understanding of his reign and its effects, but David Abulafia aims to redress the balance, presenting the man as a traditionalist and a deluded optimist searching for peace with two aggressive and suspicious popes.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49603176988945,"sku":"GOR005833967","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51400073642257,"sku":"GOR013203389","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/071399004X.jpg?v=1750743440"},{"product_id":"frederick-ii-book-david-s-h-abulafia-9780712698290","title":"Frederick II","description":"This is a biography of Frederick II (1194-1250), King of Sicily, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Jerusalem, concentrating on the complete history of his kingdoms and placing his reign in a wide context. David Abulafia presents Frederick as less tolerant, less far-sighted in his cultural interests and less ambitious to break the power of the Roman Church than has previously been thought. Until now too, the success of Frederick's enemies in denigrating him has grossly distorted the understanding of his reign and its effects, but David Abulafia aims to redress the balance, presenting the man as a traditionalist and a deluded optimist searching for peace with two aggressive and suspicious popes.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49606110183697,"sku":"GOR003424395","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49725555736849,"sku":"GOR001957581","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50670438547729,"sku":"GOR009308169","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52969766715665,"sku":"GOR003217554","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0712698299.jpg?v=1751010414"},{"product_id":"discovery-of-mankind-book-david-s-h-abulafia-9780300125825","title":"The Discovery of Mankind","description":"The first landings in the Atlantic World heralded striking and terrifying impressions of peoples entirely isolated from the explorers' continents, customs and religions. From the first recorded encounters with the native inhabitants of the Canary Islands in 1341 to Columbus' explorations in 1492 and Cabral's discovery of Brazil in 1500, western Europeans struggled to make sense of the existence of the peoples they met. Were they Adam's children, of a common lineage with the peoples of the Old World, or were they a separate creation, the monstrous races of medieval legend? Should they govern themselves? Did they have the right to be free?Emphasising contact between peoples rather than the discovery of lands, and using archaeological findings as well as eyewitness accounts, David Abulafia explores the social lives of the inhabitants, the motivations and tensions of the first transactions, and the swift transmutation of wonder to vicious exploitation. Lucid, readable and scrupulous, this is a work of humane engagement with a period in which tragically violent standards were set for European conquest across the world.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49637020958993,"sku":"GOR009995051","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50214741278993,"sku":"GOR004734882","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50347089363217,"sku":"CIN0300125828A","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50348002378001,"sku":"CIN0300125828G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51275207147793,"sku":"CIN0300125828VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0300125828.jpg?v=1750780319"},{"product_id":"great-sea-book-david-s-h-abulafia-9780195323344","title":"The Great Sea","description":"Connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa, the Mediterranean Sea has been for millennia the place where religions, economies, and political systems met, clashed, influenced and absorbed one another. In this brilliant and expansive book, David Abulafia offers a fresh perspective by focusing on the sea itself: its practical importance for transport and sustenance; its dynamic role in the rise and fall of empires; and the remarkable cast of characters-sailors, merchants, migrants, pirates, pilgrims-who have crossed and re-crossed it.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Ranging from prehistory to the 21st century, The Great Sea is above all a history of human interaction. Interweaving major political and naval developments with the ebb and flow of trade, Abulafia explores how commercial competition in the Mediterranean created both rivalries and partnerships, with merchants acting as intermediaries between cultures, trading goods that were as exotic on one side of the sea as they were commonplace on the other. 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David Abulafia leads a team of eight distinguished historians in an exploration of the great facts, themes, and epochs of this region's history: the physical setting; the rivalry between Carthaginians, Greeks, and Etruscans for control of the sea routes; unification under Rome and the subsequent breakup into Western Christendom, Byzantium, and Islam; the Crusades; commerce in medieval times; the Ottoman resurgence; the rivalry of European powers from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries; and the globalization of the region in the last century. The book departs from the traditional view of Mediterranean history, which placed emphasis on the overwhelming influences of physical geography on the molding of the region's civilizations. Instead, this new interpretation regards that physical context as a staging ground for decisive action, and at center stage are human catalysts at all levels of society-whether great kings and emperors, the sailors of medieval Amalfi, or the Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492. The authors do more than simply catalogue the societies that developed in the region; they also describe how these groups interacted with one another across the sea, enjoying commercial and political ties as well as sharing ideas and religious beliefs. 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