Thomas F. Madden

Hagia Sophia should no more be a mosque than the Parthenon should be restored to the worship of Athena. Continue Reading »

Catholics can confidently look to the life of St. Louis IX for his example of Christian charity and seek his intercession in the struggles of our age. Continue Reading »

In 1187, Pope Urban III received news so startling that he died from hearing it. Across the Mediterranean, in the Crusader-­controlled Kingdom of Jerusalem, a great battle had been fought between Christian knights and the forces of the Muslim leader, Saladin. On a rocky plain formed by an extinct . . . . Continue Reading »

Saint Louis by Jacques Le Goff translated by Gareth Evan Gollrad University of Notre Dame,1016 pages, $75 Louis IX had one goal: to be a perfect Christian king. Judging from his press, even in this critical age, he appears to have achieved it. Historical revisionism has left the reputation of the . . . . Continue Reading »

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 speech to the students of Georgetown University. As the world tried to make sense of the . . . . Continue Reading »

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 were crowded with volumes on the Civil War or World War II, but there was little on medieval battles fought in . . . . Continue Reading »

If your image of Western civilization relies on a depiction of the Crusades as an insane and bloodthirsty attack on a peaceful and sophisticated Muslim world, then you are not going to like what recent historians have to say. . . . . Continue Reading »