Archive
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Articles
Hagia Sophia: Past and Future
On May 29, 1453, after two months of continuous cannon fire, the massive triple walls that had protected Constantinople for nearly a millennium finally crumbled. The victorious Turkish invaders...
In Defense of King Louis IX
The current iconoclastic moment in the U.S. has taken an odd turn here in the city of St. Louis. As protesters across the nation tear down or deface statues...
The Great Saracen
The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin by jonathan phillips yale, 520 pages, $32.50 In 1187, Pope Urban III received news so startling that he died from hearing...
Review of Saint Louis
Saint Louis by Jacques Le Goff translated by Gareth Evan Gollrad University of Notre Dame,1016 pages, $75 n Louis IX had one goal: to be a perfect Christian king....
Inventing the Crusades
The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam by jonathan riley-smith columbia university press, 136 pages, $24.50 Within a month of the attacks of September 11, 2001, former president Bill Clinton gave a...
Fighting the Good Fight
God’s War: A New History of the Crusades by christopher tyerman belknap, 1,040 pages, $35 Not too many years ago, single-volume histories of the Crusades were a rarity. Bookstores...