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Title: A heavy-handed imitation of a much better book
Review: Lowney's book -- from its cover and font to its subject material and format as a series of mini-biographies -- is a less elegant, less informed and less nuanced rip-off of Professor Maria Rosa Menocal's masterful "Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain." Anyone interested in medieval Spanish history would do better to read Menocal's gripping account than to waste their time on a wanna-be.
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