Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Al-Andalus

The key to understanding anything is education and the best way to understanding a country's current state is to delve into their history and see what events have shaped their way of life and thinking. In the case of Spain this is rather broad and quite unique in comparison to the rest of Europe. Around 700CE the moors conquered the Iberian peninsula and through several hundred years they revolutionised Europe. The Moors carried what they had learnt from the Greeks, added their own advancements and then returned this back to Europe via Spain. Europeans subsequently took what they had learnt from the Arabs, added their advancements and carried it throughout Europe effectively kick starting the Renaissance, one of the most important eras in Europe's history. I fortunately have found a fantastic documentary explaining this part of Spain's history. If you have the time and the bandwidth to go through it, I would strongly recommend that you do. It conveys a good picture of the layers involved in the development of this rather fascinating country.

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