A breathtaking and monumental study of Spain's greatest queen, Isabella, and her direct role in three history-turning events: the expulsion of the last Muslim invaders from Western Europe, the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, and the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus--events which all took place in the space of just one year, 1492.
Written by one of America's foremost professors of English, Isabella of Spain traces in exacting detail the life of the queen from her parents through to her death, drawing upon her own writings and contemporary records. The gripping story which emerges reveals how the young queen led the last crusade against the invader Muslims, driving them back and finally defeating them at their last stronghold of Granada, ending their 700-year-long invasion of Western Europe--and how she personally sacrificed her wealth and health in this staggering achievement.
Having defeated the Muslim invaders, Isabella's attention then focused on Spain's huge Jewish population, and, after determining the full extent of their control of Spanish society, their active collaboration with the Muslim invaders, the extent of their largely fake "conversions" to Christianity in order to avoid detection, and a particularly shocking case of Jewish ritual murder of a young Christian boy by a group of Jews, she took the momentous decision to expel them from Spain.
At the same time, Isabella also financed and gave the go-ahead for Columbus's epic voyage which opened the New World to European colonization. Isabella was personally responsible for the introduction of all domestic animals to the Americas, and many of its now-common foodstuffs--while at the same time issuing sadly-ignored orders to outlaw slavery in those lands.
When first published, this book, widely acknowledged as the most significant study of the Spanish queen ever written, generated huge controversy because of its detailed description of the negative Jewish influence in Medieval Spain and the role of the Muslim invaders in nearly destroying Western civilization.
This new edition has been completely reset, and illustrated according to the author's original design. It also includes two new appendices, the first containing the entire text of the Jewish Expulsion Order, and the second, the complete text of the famous 1932 debate between the author and Cecil Roth, one of Britain's leading Jewish historians, on the subject matter of this book.