The Book Prize Index

The Quest for El Cid

Richard Fletcher

Rodrigo Diaz, the legendary warrior-knight of eleventh-century Castile known as El Cid, is remembered today as the Christian hero of the Spanish crusade who waged wars of re-conquest for the triumph of the Cross over the Crescent. He is still honored in Spain as a national hero for liberating the fatherland from the occupying Moors. Yet, as Richard Fletcher shows in this award-winning book, there are many contradictions between eleventh-century reality and the mythology that developed with the passing years.

HistoryWorld History · medium confidenceWorld History81 signalsLlm Classifier: World History -> World HistoryTopic Classifier: Intellectual History & Ideas -> HistoryKeyword Classifier: Religion -> ReligionIntellectual History & IdeasAmerican Civil WarConstitutional History

Award History

2 wins · 2 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Wolfson History PrizeMajor1990WinnerOfficial source
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History1990WinnerSecondary source
View all award history (2)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    • Rodrigo Diaz78%

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • Spain70%

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    45 / 100 academic

    Trade / academic crossover

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 70%.