Would it have been better if NG had specified that Marseilles will be Europe's first Muslim city since the reconquista? Is that really the important thing here or is it the fact that demography is destiny, and Muslim Marseilles will probably resemble Muslim Algiers, Baghdad, Timbuktu etc. than Christian Marseilles, or that this is the intended result of policies consciously designed and implemented over half a century by Europe's elite at the expense of the rest of its population?

In those golden times the NG could always be relied to provite coloured pictures of bare-breasted women to educate and perhaps to thrill its pale white readership. A public service, nobly rendered. The article, however, does not seem to jibe with the title of the blog entry. Ah, well.

Ahhh, the parts of European history that were overlooked in Western Civ class.

Ask Charlimagne about the size of the Muslim population in Western Europe.

When he found it unhealthy in his excursion into Muslim Al-Andalus he attacked a Christian city in frustration. Which the Basques showed him hadn't been a good idea, at the cost of his rear guard as he returned/retreated(?) back through the Pyrennes.

I would have thought National Geographic would get it alittle closer to World History rather than the Western Civ verson

The first time I researched Poiters I it was from the Muslim side, which may have tweaked my point of view a bit

In my research of the Carolingians I found that both the Carolingians and the Church had motives for the Carolingians being seen as heroes through the support of the Heavens. Charles needed the church for validation of him taking the crown and the Church needed his army and the public relations of supporting a hero

In the battle the cavalry had to have pretty good confidence to attack a dismounted force.

As far as the "defeat" perhaps the Franks' used a wall similar to that used at Hastings 300 years later.

Or maybe even the geography and wall of Marathon or Agincourt? Though one was foot on foot and the other cavalry on archers.

Or it could be nothing more than when the Moors lost their leader they pulled back and the attackers declared victory, again like Hastings which is what I think probable

...the more ethnic and religious groups get to be the current-day threats.

Muslims in modern Europe sounds a lot like Jews in in Middle Ages Europe, or the United States' initial view of the Irish, or the Italians, or the Slavs, or the Mexicans, or the blacks, or the Chinese. Predictions of infidel wombs on overtime and alien customs have been the bread-and-butter or pundits and know-nothings for the past 200 years.

The Jewish diaspora, the Muslim diaspora, the Chinese diaspora, and the Japanese diaspora have shown that immigrants from even the most traditional cultures will assimilate and adapt to their new homes. It might take an extra generation or two, but it's bound to happen. Muslims in Europe will have fewer babies because of better family planning, spendier real estate, fewer economic opportunities, etc. It's impossible to have a large family in a country like Italy, and Muslims will figure that out soon enough, just like the Italians have.

Of course, the new homes of immigrants will change some, and these countries have the chance to adopt laws that promote assimilation and discourage the persistence of certain customs.

Just look how sloppy the Catholics have gotten once the temptations of secular and materialistic life were presented to them. Moreover, we can look to Muslim behavior in the Middle East to know that most Muslims in Europe and North America will opt for cigarettes, soccer, booze, porn, and good ol' materialism. And the girls will become more emancipated over time.

Hard to judge the Islamic or the Arab world by what's been going on in Iraq or Afghanistan. Egypt has persisted as an ordered society of sorts for the past 5,000 years, and Iran/Persia for 3000-plus years so it's more than a little vain for even the most exceptional American pundits and Cassandras to judge them as failed states or harbingers of the end times.

"The Jewish diaspora, the Muslim diaspora, the Chinese diaspora, and the Japanese diaspora have shown that immigrants from even the most traditional cultures will assimilate and adapt to their new homes."

I don't think your statement is entirely true and in fact might be a bit "rosy" and "sentimental." In the previous US immigration experience, you are certainly right. The immigrants like my grandparents WANTED to assimilate and "become Americans." They eventually did so despite many obstacles placed in their paths by those groups who got to America earlier.

Signs of successful assimilation? Use of English as the national language (no ballots printed in different languages), intermarriage outside of one's own ethnic or religious group, service in the national army, no "dual passports," co-existence among the various religions, and eventual total absorption into the fabric of national life. 100 years ago the Germans were the largest immigrant group to the US...but now except for New York's Steuben Day Parade and the Oktoberfest, it's impossible to see them as a separate ethnicity or group. Hell, it's hard for me even to find an authentic German restaurant now, even though I love that cusine. And in the short 35 years since the collapse of South Vietnam, the Vietnamese in the US have already gone a long way towards assimilation.

In contrast, look at the Turks in Berlin's Kreuzberg district, the Chinese in Jakarta, the North Africans in Paris or Marseille, the Indians in Fiji, the Muslims in India, etc., etc. In those cases, the immigrants have been in their host countries for generations already. Look everywhere there is friction, and you will find immigrant groups that CHOOSE not to adapt totally to their host country, for reasons having to do with affinity for their original country, lack of identification with the "national narrative" (in our case, the American Revolution, the great Civil War, emancipation, the two world wars, etc., etc.). And in the case of the brand of militant Islam that we're seeing today, those immigrants want to establish themselves as fundamentally different from the society of the host country -- assimilation is in fact not their goal.

when I want to see pieces and glossy spreads about the glories of Medieval Islam vs. Frank barbarism, and the spread of Arabic civilization, I always turn to Aramco World. I can't get enough of Cordoba being contrasted with medieval London.

The massive role of Islam in shaping -- both positively and negatively -- early Europe has, like much of non-Eurocentric history, been elided in the popular imagination in favor of a myth of a constant and predestined march to pre-eminent civilization in a culturally and religiously-monolithic milieu. Yet for most of its history, Europe was only one player, and one lifeinsuranceblog of lesser importance, in a world dominated by rich and powerful Greco-Romans, Persians, Ottoman Turks, Mongols, Arabs, and East Africans.

Did Obama really write his own books? I understand he had a "ghost writer". If he could really write a book, why can't he write his own speeches & pu dwn on paper what he really feels? After all, JFK & MLK did. MLK even copyrighted them..

"Is rio orange war always forfait b and you inevitable ?"
MaximB