The Emperor and the Elephant

"This study offers a new way to consider this relationship via the lens of the Carolingian empire. In the years that it dominated western and central Europe in the eighth and ninth centuries, the Carolingian empire was regularly engaged in diplomatic relations with a number of Islamic polities. Governors of North Africa and leaders in Italy were similarly drawn into the Frankish orbit in this time. This book is intended to be the standard academic work on the subject. Drawing upon Arabic sources and new approaches to the wider context that Frankish monarchs operated in allows the volume to shed fresh light on these relations by investigating the previously neglected perspectives of the Muslim rulers in question"--