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The Politics of Identity in Visigothic Spain: Religion and Power in the Histories of Isidore of Seville. By Jamie Wood. [Brill's Series on the Early Middle Ages, Vol. 21.] Boston: Brill. 2012. Pp.xii, 275. $151.00. ISBN 978-9- 004-20990-9.)
The florid title of this book conceals more than it reveals of its author's purposes, which involve the comparison of all the writings of Isidore that have any bearing on history. These consist primarily of short historical narra- tives of different kinds, but also include considerations of the nature and pur- pose of history in such seemingly nonhistorical texts as the Etymologiae. Such an approach, embracing the full range of these texts, is revealing, espe- cially of reasons for the marked differences between the two versions of both St. Isidore of Seville's Chronicle and his histories of the Goths, Vandals, and Sueves.The explanations given for such variations depend upon an a priori view of Isidore as both principal ideologue and spokesman for the Gothic monarchy, and as...