Robert Irwin goes rollerblading most days and takes part in rollerblading marathons.His other pursuits include juggling, pinball and cooking. He is the commissioning editor for the TLS for The Middle East and writes for a number of newspapers and journals in the UK and the USA.
He also lectured on Arabic and Middle Eastern History at the universities of London, Cambridge and Oxford. He read Modern History at Oxford and taught Medieval History at the University of St Andrews. As our guide to this architectural masterpiece, Robert Irwin allows us to fully understand the impact of the Alhambra. Yet its influence on art and on literature-including Orientalist painting and the architecture of cinemas, Washington Irving and Jorge Luis Borges-has been lasting and significant. Its sumptuously appointed halls have lain witness to murder and mayhem. The Alhambra, which resembles a fairy-tale palace, was constructed by slave labor in an era of economic decline, plague, and political violence.
Its most impressive buildings were designed not by architects, but by philosophers and poets. Its sophisticated ornamentation is not indiscriminate but full of hidden meaning. It is a complex full of mysteries-even its purpose is unclear. Every day thousands of tourists enter this magnificent site to be awestruck by its towers and courts, its fountained gardens, its honeycombed ceilings and intricate tile work. Built by a threatened dynasty of Muslim Spain, it was preserved as a monument to the triumph of Christianity. The Alhambra is the only Muslim palace to have survived since the Middle Ages. In his absorbing new book, Robert Irwin, Arabist and novelist, examines its history and allure. The Alhambra has long been a byword for exotic and melancholy beauty.
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