Everyone knows that the Crusades were horrible miscarriages of justice, and examples of Western Imperialism, right? The Pope called the Crusades to find a “release valve” for the warring knights in Europe and to rob the East of its wealth and to plunder the Arab states in the Holy Land. That’s the common take on the Crusades. The Crusades were assaults on the otherwise peace-loving Islamic nation-states. These and other myths are shattered to little pieces in this fascinating book.
Stark marshals impressive evidence that the common view of the Crusades is far from the truth in this fascinating account of the motivations of the Crusaders and the often overlooked reality of just what was happening in the Holy Land at the hands of Islamic armies bent on spreading Islam by force of arms.
If you have ever wondered if there is more to the story of the Crusades than the received wisdom we were all given in our basic history courses, you will enjoy this book, very much.
February 7th, 2010 | 8:36 pm | #1
Whatever the merits of this book you cant seriously insist that the Radiant God who is Alive as all beings, and whose Blessing Light freely shines on all beings, even the very worst of human beings, has ever been on any ones side in any war, in any time and place. Yes some wars, particularly World War II, had by necessity, to be won by the Western Allies. And what has any of the contents of this book got to do with understanding our now globalized collective situation in which everything is instantaneously inter-connected, and in which one mistake, or even seemingly minor incident, could very well trigger off World War III.
February 7th, 2010 | 8:51 pm | #2
Uh…ok.
February 8th, 2010 | 2:28 am | #3
Sounds like an interesting book.
Some forget, I think, just how real the Muslim threat was.
Spain fell. All of Europe could have been next.
On another note…perhaps John should set the hash-pipe down for a breather.
February 8th, 2010 | 10:13 am | #4
One seems to forget what the Seljuk Turks did to Christians and other people, which precipitated to the Crusades. Destroying the Church of the Holy Sepulcher by the “mad caliph” just speed-ed up the Crusades.
February 8th, 2010 | 11:22 am | #5
With due respect to my paternal Orthodox roots, I should probably point out that the Greeks have little love for the crusaders, who sacked Constantinople in 1204. Does Stark mention this event?
February 8th, 2010 | 4:33 pm | #6
Re: #2.
Rev. McCain, you and I for once are on exactly the same page :)
February 9th, 2010 | 11:37 pm | #7
Well, he was not internviewed about the 4th crusade. I know an orthodox who stated that the 4th crusade was terrible but the Byzantine emperor didn’t buy up to the Franks and they took their revenge. What is interesting is that about 500 years earlier Justinian tried to reconquer Italy that war lasted about 18 years and their was plenty of destrucation from the reconqest. But for Orthodox to mention that maybe Justinian might have been wrong to try to reconquer Italy not one word. Granted, I don’t see Justinian as a warmonger but the reconquest of Italy was long and much of it was lost to the Lombards after his death.
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