Vhis_a_446634.dvi

HISTORY: Reviews of New Books older men and one in his twenties had Of course, acts of revenge do not ex- of convivencia (or perhaps because of been disfigured by a severe beating and plain why bloody violence and murder it), the principal historiographical pre- shot several times, and two of the three were generally seen as the appropriate occupation over the centuries was to had an ear cut. The court inquiry and in- way to right previous wrongs. Suther- propagate an artificially univocal na- vestigation into the murder of the three land's interpretation of court docu- tional history that deprived Muslims unidentified men opens to an investi- ments and biographical information and Jews of any significant role beyond gation of a far more complicated and on those accused, giving testimony, that of interloper. In the process, Span- historically revealing reality: the White or killed makes the case that "pub- ish historians tended to saddle the few Terror, or anti-Jacobin counterrevolu- lic opinion demanded exceptional jus- female players in this national drama tion, in a small provincial town, popula- tice for exceptional crimes," though few with a disproportionate responsibility tion approximately 7,500. Sutherland's considered vigilantism anything more for the political fortunes of their men.
work examines the prosecution of sixty- than the "extreme end of a continuum The title cleverly plays on the two seven people, including two women, of judicial options" (255–56). Bands meanings of "Eve," one referring to the between 1795 and 1798 for the mur- of self-appointed judges took it upon formation of Spanish historical identity der, assault, and robbery of more than themselves to right wrongs, organized, that began with the exploits of Rodrigo forty-five neighbors; what this prosecu- and self-justified quite differently from and Pelayo and the other evoking the tion reflected about national, regional, crowds and the crowd mentality of rev- legendary La Cava, whose deflowering and local politics; and how it changed olutionary action.
unleashed the Muslim invasion and set as a result of the revolution. In short, his Wrongs righted include economic in- the stage for centuries of Christian re- study tests the longstanding supposition justices between landlords, tenant farm- among social historians that "preexist- ers, and peasants and between mer- The first part of Grieve's book con- ing cultural predispositions or heritages chants and consumers in the emerg- siders the earliest medieval accounts determine action" (xiv).
ing fair market scheme of economics.
of these events, which, from the very What Sutherland reveals is a compli- The massacres and individual murders beginning, consistently tease out the cated net in which Aubagne reacted to at Aubagne in the 1790s were local ver- moral shortcomings of the Visigoths the success of Jacobin political leaders sions of similar incidents in regional who lost Spain and parade the virtue in Marseilles, the regional urban cen- capitals and Paris but at the core were of the Asturians who began the pro- ter that exerted such economic influ- primarily about local grievances and lo- cess of getting it back. By the late ninth ence over the rural town of Aubagne.
cal enemies.
century, the author of the Chronicle of From 1791, the revolutionaries of Mar- Sutherland's book is an incredibly Alfonso III had already put words to seilles were exporting support for the rich study of the micro and the macro the basic Pelayo narrative, and ‘Abd al- Jacobins into Nimes, Avignon, and Ar- story of cultural practice and human Hakam, who wrote a history of Egypt les, as well as Aubagne. Resentment motivation. It is well-documented, pro- at about the same time, had already of- built immediately as the new national viding depth for the scholar through the fered up Rodrigo's ill-fated relationship government co-opted regional powers, use of archival sources. It is also very with Julian's daughter as the precipitat- imposed new taxes, and ignored indi- readable for anyone with some back- ing factor behind the Muslim incursion.
vidual incidents of violence and mur- ground in the general narrative of the With Xim´enez de Rada's De Rebus His- der within the newly reformed courts.
French Revolution and the genre of cul- paniae (1243) and the Cr´onica de 1344, Jacobinism in Aubagne dominated ev- tural history.
"La Cava" entered Christian historiog- erything, and a "secret and particular raphy, although at this early stage in the committee" (123) monitored all. As the NANCY LOPATIN-LUMMIS legend's development she still attracted public turned on the Jacobins in bloody University of Wisconsin–Stevens Point less blame than either Rodrigo or Ju- insurrections in Lyon, elected officials Copyright 2010 Taylor & Francis lian. For Grieve, it is Pedro de Corral's in Marseilles and the regional towns did Cr´onica sarracina (c. 1430), later pub- not need to flee; they simply changed lished under the title Cr´onica del Rey policies, rather than personnel. How- Rodrigo (1499), that really set the pace ever, the defeat of Federalism in Mar- Grieve, Patricia E.
for generations of subsequent Spanish seilles required the correction of its The Eve of Spain: Myths of Origins in
historians by dividing the blame for the laws and regulations. New laws were the History of Christian, Muslim, and
events of 711 between La Cava and the enacted that severely punished partici- pation in Federalist institutions. Right- Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press The historical literature of imperial ing the wrongs imposed on towns and 312 pp., $60.00, ISBN 0-8018-9036-5 Spain is the focus of the second part regions by the Jacobin judicial system Publication Date: March 2009 of the book. The culmination of the re- wrought havoc and mayhem but was conquista and the beginnings of New promoted as the only tool available.
This book, aimed at specialists but still World expansion made King Fernando Revenge for the Terror, like revenge accessible to the armchair scholar, ex- seem like the fulfillment of Pelayo's against the Old Regime, was swift plores how historians of Spain, prin- promise and Queen Isabel seem like a and bloody. Massacres in Provence cipally in the late medieval and early second Mary, undoing the sins of La "were the result of the progressive loss modern periods, elaborated the leg- Cava, a second Eve. Yet Spain's his- of confidence in authorities and es- ends surrounding the loss and recov- tory was never a smooth one, and ev- pecially in the ability of the courts ery of Christian Iberia. Patricia Grieve, ery crisis seemed to inspire another to mete out appropriate punishment" a professor of Spanish literature at take on the foundational myths, as if Columbia, shows that, despite centuries in an effort to get Spain back on track.
April 2010, Volume 38, Number 2 With this in mind, Grieve probes the Gibbs, David N.
interesting, it would seem imperative works of Bartolom´e Palau, Lu´ıs de First Do No Harm: Humanitarian
that Gibbs provide more written work Le´on, Ambrosio de Morales, Juan de Intervention and the Destruction of
to expand on this controversial posi- Mariana, Lope de Vega, and Diego tion, which seeks to overturn a percep- de Saavadra Fajardo. She also considers Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press tion now long-ingrained in the mindset at some length the Historia verdadera 346 pp., $79.95, ISBN 978-0-8265-1643-5 of academics and politicians in many del rey don Rodrigo (1592, 1600) of the Publication Date: June 2009 Western countries.
Morisco historian Miguel de Luna, one A book like this proves the value of of the few who swam against the current An expert in the field of foreign inter- academic debate and the importance of by drawing attention to the contribu- vention, David N. Gibbs is an associate constant questioning in the search for tions of the Muslim rulers of medieval professor of history and political sci- truth. In the process of re-examining ence at the University of Arizona. In this events in Yugoslavia, Gibbs also chal- The third part of Grieve's analy- thought-provoking book, he challenges lenges traditional concepts about hu- sis briefly considers the Spanish myths conventional wisdom about Western, manitarian intervention and its linkage of origin since the Enlightenment, un- and specifically NATO, intervention in to genocide. Although it is true that derscoring the fascination that Spain parts of the former state of Yugoslavia every action of so-called humanitar- held for the Romantics and Orien- and questions the accepted notion of ian intervention can and has been de- talists before turning, almost as an such intervention being motivated by rided as being motivated by national afterthought, to key nineteenth- and disinterested and benign humanitarian self-interest or imperial ambition, it is twentieth-century historians, such as impulses. For his research and to val- important for those who, like Gibbs, Ram´on Men´endez Pidal. A few con- idate his views, which are bound to critique this form of international ac- cluding pages on Franco's use of neo- provoke debate, Gibbs has used tran- tion to provide clear alternatives for Gothism and the potential roles of scripts from the International Crimi- the world community when innocent the legend in twenty-first-century Spain nal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia men, women, and children are ruth- bring the book to a close.
as well as a vast collection of gov- lessly massacred simply because they This book represents a singularly am- ernmental and nongovernmental orga- belong to a particular race, religion, bitious project, and the author is to be nization documents and media com- tribe, or ethnic group. Such massive suf- commended for gathering and present- mentary from European and Ameri- fering continues in many parts of the ing so many variations on this important can sources. More interesting is his use world, and the global community must historiographical theme. However, the of memoirs, diaries, and personal ac- find a feasible and moral way of deal- book has significant limitations. Grieve counts by participants in the searing ing with and stopping such genocide states clearly at the outset that this is events that resulted in so much suffer- wherever it occurs. Although humani- "not a conventional history," but "a his- ing for thousands of people. After read- tarian intervention is often fraught with tory of the nation through the examina- ing this book, whether or not one ac- potential problems, massive human suf- tion of its literary and historical texts, of cepts Gibbs's interpretation—which he fering cannot simply be ignored or left how the country crafted its own story, admits reflects "the standpoint of the to the United Nations—which has been and how that story became the official political Left" (x)—there is a hope that unable in many cases, such as Soma- history of Spain" (13). This kind of a he will write in greater detail and use lia, to make any meaningful difference history of ideas approach has allowed this wealth of primary and secondary for the victims. The value of Gibbs's the author to cover a wide range of rel- material to explain and amplify his the- contribution is to question conventional evant sources without feeling the need sis. Questioning the extent of human views. Perhaps he can now elucidate so- to locate each one in its specific his- rights concerns in prompting the West- lutions for such shattering crises so that torical and literary context. As a re- ern intervention in Yugoslavia, Gibbs the world community can help the vic- sult, the level of actual interpretation suggests, instead, that this incursion tims without losing its moral compass remains rather superficial, as the author actually reflected American and Euro- in the process.
repeatedly comes back to her highly pean reactions to the fall of the Soviet RANEE K. L. PANJABI significant but ultimately underexam- Union and demonstrated a degree of Memorial University of Newfoundland, ined point that these historians con- trans-Atlantic rivalry in the search for sistently promoted a neo-Gothic inter- hegemony in that vulnerable Eastern Copyright 2010 Taylor & Francis pretation of 711 and its aftermath that European region.
essentially disenfranchised Jews, Mus- Gibbs explores the reasons for the lims, and women as cocontributors to breakup of Yugoslavia and contradicts Spanish civilization. A clear sense of the conventional view that has demo- the actual evolution of these ideas over nized Serbia and its leader Milosevic, time, place, or genre does not emerge arguing that atrocities were commit- from the text, although it is not at ted by all sides during that conflict all clear to me that the sources actu- in its various phases throughout Croa- ally lend themselves to such a linear tia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Gibbs com- Siniawer, Eiko Maruko ments, "There was thus a moral dou- Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists: The
ble standard: Serb atrocities were con- Violent Politics of Modern Japan,
KENNETH BAXTER WOLF demned, while crimes by other ethnic Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, groups were regarded leniently" (216).
Copyright 2010 Taylor & Francis 270 pp., $39.95, ISBN 978-0801447204, Although this viewpoint is certainly Publication Date: October 2008 Copyright of History: Reviews of New Books is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
Copyright of History: Reviews of New Books is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.

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