Bibliofreakblog

When the Moors Ruled in Europe (DVD)

You can actually find this whole documentary for free online, but I picked it up at the library recently.  As you might be able to tell by yesterday’s post, I have been on a weird documentary kick as of late.  They’re nice to watch while doing boring stuff like paying bills.

However, I found this a bit lacking.  I wanted more of a comprehensive overview, and this stayed firmly in the “the Muslims in Spain liked math and architecture” camp.  

I would have liked to have understood more about society in general, why they stayed mostly in Iberia, how their government worked, how their presence influenced the rest of Europe.

These things were hinted at, but not discussed in detail.

Of course, the nice thing about spending so much time talking about architecture was, well, the architecture.  

They were able to explain a lot about the symmetry involved in the Alhambra and other Mosques and palaces, which was really interesting.  There was one bit where they showed a progression of arches, and something about the diagonal of a rectangle standing upright and forming the next rectangle upon which an arch was built.  Unfortunately, I am not explaining this well, and I can’t find a clip, but you can watch the whole thing here.