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Short notices 253 to survive from the Middle Ages. In 1350 Ibn Battuta visited al-Andalus and then from 1353 to 1355 he ventured south across tbe Sahara to Mali in West Africa. His rihla was composed on the orders of the sultan of Morocco with the collaboration of a young literary scholar, Ibn Juzayy, between 1356 and 1358. It has been given many editions and translations, most particularly the magisterial EngUsh translation of H. A. R. Gibb in three volumes [Hakluyt Society, second series, nos 110, 117, 141 (1958, 1961, 1971)]. The problem with the rihla is that it is not a diary, log, or journal. It is a literary compilation based on Ibn Battuta's experiences and recollections but incorporating material from many other Muslim travellers and geographers. Thus Ibn Battuta's itinerary is very difficulttodeduce from it in places and some regions described in it may not have been visited by him at all. Dunn is perfecdy well aware of this but he has chosen not to present the difficulties in this interpretation for the general public. His book is in the genre of H. F. M . Prescott's Friar Felix at large (1950), an interpretation of the four volumes of Felix Fabri's two pilgrimages to the Holy Land in 1480 and 1483. In both cases the reconstruction may whet the appetite but cannot replace the original and isfrequentlymisleading. For example, in the case of Ibn Battuta, the reader may well be deceived into believing that he actually travelled through Syria and Palestine. But in fact this section of the rihla is taken from the twelfth-century rihla of the Andalusian traveller Ibn Jubayr. Dunn realizes this (p. 63, n. 28) but neither brings it sufficiently to the attention of the reader nor points out that Ibn Battuta may never have visisted places such as Acre, Tyre, and Beirut at all (cf. p. 156, n.3). By all means whet the appetite but the real thing cannot be replaced by this work. John H. Pryor Department of History University of Sydney Edbury, Peter W. and John G. Rowe, William of Tyre: historian of the Latin East, rpt, Cambridge University Press, 1990; paper; pp. x, 187; R.R.P. AUS$39.95. William of Tyre was one of the most important historians of the Middle Ages. Not only is his Historia lew solymitana the only Latin source for the history of the Crusader states between 1127 and 1184, and therefore of unique importance for historians, it is also one of the great works of medieval historical literature from a creative and methodological perspective. The man William, archdeacon of Tyre 1167-75 and archbishop 1175-84/86, is known almost entirely through his surviving historical work: the Historia. His other works have all been lost and there are few documentary records of his 254 Short notices career, even though he was Chancellor of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1174 to 1183/85. The present work is therefore a reconstruction of the career and mentality of a man from his creative work. But because of who William was, and because of the historical importance of the Historia, it is also an essential work for the historical study of the Crusader states. It would be so inespective of its quality but in fact this book is a fine work of great perception, clearly displaying the intellectual fruits of the ten years of collaboration between the two historians who produced it. It is divided into two fundamental sections. Thefirstaddresses the Historia as a work of medieval historical science. The second discusses William's attitudes to the monarchy of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, church/state relations in the Latin East the Papacy, the Byzantines, and the Muslim opponent. All of the chapters are judicious. Conclusions are perspicacious but restrained. Arguments are considered and are clearly the result of long cogitation. However, the chapter on William's attitudes to the Byzantines does, I think, bring to the fore a weakness in the book. William's expressed sentiments towards the Byzantines vary enormously. In some instances he is favourable, in others unfavourable; now friendly, now hostile; one moment praising, in another context censorious. Edbury...

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