In this well-written, thoroughly-researched and finely-produced book, Matt King examines the interdependence and engagement of the Norman d’Hauteville dynasty of Sicily and the Berber Zirid dynasty of Ifriqiya from the mid-eleventh through to the second half of the twelfth century. The histories of the two shores of the Mediterranean have traditionally been viewed in isolation, due to the long-dominant paradigm that separated the histories of medieval Christendom and dar al-Islam. Thanks to the work of historians in recent decades who have shifted their perspective to the Mediterranean, and to the fact that many scholars are now trained in both Arabic and Latin and in both of these historiographical traditions, that gap is closing, and we now appreciate that there was more that joined the Christian and Muslim worlds of the Middle Ages than separated them. As the author notes, “Combining the previously disparate histories of the Zirids and Normans into a singular integrated narrative shows the degree to which their stories are inseparable. It is impossible to understand one without the other” (3).

Much of such work has been done on the western Mediterranean, and in particular on the relationship between the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghrib. King’s study, by contrast, focuses on the central Mediterranean and the contest for the control of Sicily and Ifriqiya (more or less modern Tunisia). Sicily and Ifriqiya had long been embroiled economically. In the Classical era, “Africa” provided staples for Sicily, while, by the turn of the millennium, it was now Sicily that had become a supplier of food to Ifriqiya in exchange for African gold and other high-value commodities. In the 1050s, Norman adventurers began a long conquest of Sicily from the ruling Kalbid dynasty, a process which the Zirids (Fatimid clients who had broken away) sought first to forestall and then to accommodate, before the Normans invaded and conquered their territory in the early 1100s, just as the Almohads were rolling in from the west. King’s aims are to counter the entrenched narrative of Zirid decline, reassess the effect of the Hilalian invasions, and probe the “myth of [Norman] tolerance.”

The study comprises for the most part a narrative political and economic history of six chapters, which proceed in chronological order and are bookended by an introduction and epilogue. Chapter one, “Geographic Orientations and the Rise of the Fatimids,” sets the stage for the emergence of the Zirids, with discussions of the environment and economy of Ifriqiya and an account of the Fatimid overthrow of the Aghlabids and the foundation of a new capital at Mahdia. Next, “The Contest for Sicily in the Eleventh Century” sees the Zirids attempting to disengage from Fatimid domination, in response to which the latter encouraged aggressive Arab Bedouin tribes, the Banu Hillal and Banu Sulaym, to move into Zirid territory. Meanwhile, the Normans had begun a grinding half-century long campaign to conquer Sicily, to which the Zirids were obliged but unable to respond. The third chapter, “Commerce and Conflict from 1087 to 1123,” shows how war and commerce carried on simultaneously, as Normans and Zirids recruited various allies to their causes and attacked each other, often deploying the rhetoric of holy war, even as they continued to establish trading treaties. Chapter four, “The End of the Emirate and the Beginning of the Kingdom,” shows how the Zirids’ network of alliances collapsed precisely as Norman Sicily consolidated and expanded under the rule of its first king, Roger II. With a navy under the command of the Armenian former-Zirid functionary, George of Antioch, first and then the apostate eunuch, Philip of Mahdia, Roger waged a war of conquest against Ifriqiya and forged a tight alliance with Fatimid Egypt. The Zirids, for their part, were riven with internal dissent, aggravated by a devastating drought that sapped resources and undermined solidarity. In “The Norman Kingdom of Africa,” Roger’s conquests of the late 1140s see the Normans victorious. Roger takes the title “King of Africa/Malik Ifriqiya” and establishes a patron-client regime across the southern littoral, using local Muslim governors as his proxies. But this trans-Mediterranean Norman imperium was not fated to endure, and in the final chapter, “The Fall of Norman Africa and the Legacy of Zirid-Norman Interactions,” King takes us through the simultaneous crisis of d’Hauteville authority in Sicily and the disintegration of Norman control in Ifriqiya. Unrest in Palermo among the Latin elite, together with Byzantine resurgence and Fatimid decline, undermined the foundations of Norman power in the Mediterranean. This occurred just as the Almohads, a millenarian Islamic reform movement that had overthrown the Almoravids and reasserted Muslim control over al-Andalus, sent their armies eastwards. This emboldened local Muslim authorities to overthrow the now-tenuous dominion of the Normans. And so, within a century, the Norman colonial experiment in Ifriqiya had ended; within decades the d’Hautevilles would be replaced by the Hohenstaufens and the Almohads by the Hafsids and--at least on the Latin Christian side--remain largely forgotten.

King makes impressive use of sources ranging from chronicles and archival documents to literature in Arabic, Latin, and Romance vernaculars. This produces a rich and vivid historical narrative that clearly demonstrates just how entangled these two dynasties were. As such, his book constitutes an important intervention in the historiography of both Latin Europe and the Islamic world. Moreover, he incorporates the latest studies on climate to present an analysis of the role of environment and geography in this history, further enriching this study. When crafting a narrative, one must make choices as to what one includes, and King is judicious; that said, this particular reviewer would have liked to have seen a clearer incorporation of the Fatimids in this story. In many ways they are the third leg of the central Mediterranean stool. Delving into the Fatimids, one can also discern under the surface Armenian networks and networks of Norman crypto-Muslim eunuchs anchored in Egypt. Similarly, by focusing so clearly on the Zirid-Norman axis, King does not perhaps bring out as clearly as he might have the crucial Greco-Byzantine elements of Norman Sicily and Norman policy. Finally, on a more concrete note, in a book about two dynasties, a figure illustrating the family trees of the Norman and Zirid rulers would have been most welcome. These are for the most part quibbles; all of that said, Dynasties Intertwined constitutes an excellent study and an impressive first book--a significant intervention in Mediterranean Studies that holds the promise of engaging and important scholarship to come.