The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land by Thomas Asbridge (PDF)

Description

The Crusades is an authoritative, accessible single-volume history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land in the Middle Ages. Thomas Asbridge—a renowned historian who writes with “maximum vividness” (Joan Acocella, The New Yorker)—covers the years 1095 to 1291 in this big, ambitious, readable account of one of the most fascinating periods in history. From Richard the Lionheart to the mighty Saladin, from the emperors of Byzantium to the Knights Templar, Asbridge’s book is a magnificent epic of Holy War between the Christian and Islamic worlds, full of adventure, intrigue, and sweeping grandeur.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐“The Crusades: Th Authoritative History of the Wars for the Holy Lands” By Thomas AsbridgeThis is the single best book I have found to date on the Crusades in the Levant.The Crusades were not limited to the Levant. Crusades were also conducted on the Iberian Peninsula, Western Africa and in Poland. These are mentioned in this book for reference only to other events occurring at the time of the Crusades to the Levant.The Crusades (hereafter limited to the Middle East or Levant) were extremely complex series of events mixing religious, political, personal and military factors into what essentially could be called a tragedy for the Western World. No one knows how many lives were lost over the two centuries of the Crusades from 1096 to its conclusions in 1291 but it was several million. It is almost certain that historical sources on numbers of people in any event were exaggerated.The First Crusade was initiated by Pope Urban II although, clearly his predecessor, Pope Gregory VII established the beginnings of the support for it. There was no urgent cause for the Crusades: Jersalem and the Holy Lands were in the hands of the Muslims for several hundred years. The relationships between Eastern Christians and the Islamic believers of the region was in stasis. Thus the Crusades were wars of agression created by the Roman Catholic Church.In order to build support for the wars, the Church created a theory that individuals on the Crusades could receive forgiveness for their sins by vowing to “take the cross” and journeying to conduct war to retake Jerusalem from Islam. Later the Chruch would create indulgences and other constructions to propel nobles and their subjects to the Crusades. These constructions would plague the Church in later centuries and eventually lead to the schism of the Reformation.To reach the Levant, Crusaders had to march through the Balkans and Byzantium. Since the first Crusades were ill planned and lack sufficient logistics, the Crusaders and camp followers were reliant on foraging to survive. The people the Balkans, who first welcomed the Crusaders, reacted with retribution on the Crusaders. This, of course, created problems for later Crusaders. When the Crusaders reached Constantinople, the Greek Christians of Byzantium were none to happy to support the disruptive Crusades. The other way to reach the Levant was by ship and this became the preferred path in later Crusades although it was more expensive.The only Crusade that had a modicum of success was the First Crusade in that it acheived its goal of securing Jerusalem for the Western Christians. While this Crusade had multiple disasters, it did have the advantage of finding the Islamic world weakened by internecine strife between the Shia and Sunni as well as a new invasion force from the Seljak Turks.But the First Crusade was futile as the Crusaders had no where near enough Christian people willing to live their lives in the Levant and as well defend Jerusalem from the Islamic armies set against it. This was compounded by the politics of different groups within the Crusaders to support each other at critical times. In addition the Muslims gained strength thoughout the period. As a result later Crusades all ultimately failed.What is probably the best part of this book is the description of the rise of Nur al Din followed by Saladin and the Mamluks in unifying the Levant to finally drive out the crusaders. It is my belief that while many people know of the Crusades, very few know the what caused the Crusades to fail.Without understanding how the Muslim world changed in the two centuries of the Crusades, I don’t believe anyone can rationalize the Crusades. Certainly, the Europeans did not as they continued to blame Crusade failures on God’s wrath for the sinners and the sins committed during Crusades.While this book does have adequate maps supporting the text, I used Google Maps to both understand where the major battles were as well as to understand the terrain the battles were fought on. It is a tremendous asset to someone interested in military history of the Crusades to use both the terrain and the satellite views to augment the text.In the Conclusions of this book, the author warns about parallelizing the Crusades with more recent histories elsewhere. However, when one compares the events of the two centuries of the Crusades, one can find many parallel situations to current history in the Middle East. For examples, Israel has boundaries closely matching the lands held by the Christians during the Crusades. This is no accident as the topography largely dictates defendable boundaries. The Shia and Sunni split in Islam still exists and continues to influence regional politics. However, thus far, no Islamic leaders have risen in the Middle East to compare to Nur al Din, Saladin or Baybars.I highly recommend this book to anyone wishing a better understanding of the Crusades and to those who wish to know the origins of the geopolitical history of the area.

⭐I finally found a book that told me everything I wanted to know about the crusades in a way that was extremely readable. This book should be famous. I admit that Thomas Asbridge, the author, may not have everything exactly the way it happened, but this is HISTORY, and who can? But the book is rounded-out enough that I’m sure I’ve got the right FEEL for what happened there and then.

⭐This is an excellent history of the Crusades: fair, even and moderate in its views. Which means it gives you the information you need to know in order to think about the Crusades without overly prejudicing you one direction or another. However, this is thus an agnostic history, not partisan in its view of the Crusades, and while this is probably helpful in an introduction to the Crusades, when it comes to the the Crusades I might appreciate a companion history that argues for or against the Crusades from a more partisan point of view.

⭐Asbridge has written a simply magnificent work on the Crusades. Covering the first 7 Crusades (1189 – 1254), the religious, political, social, military and economic contexts of these wars are examined in detail, using an abundance of source material from both the Latin West and Islamic Near East. The emphasis of _The Crusades_ is primarily on the internal political divisions (among both Europeans and Muslims) that led to the initial success of the Crusades, and which perpetuated the struggle for the next 200 years.That both the Christian west and Islamic responses to the Crusades were presented particularly impressed me – typically either one side (

⭐,

⭐) or the other (

⭐). Towards these ends, Asbridge presents a very clear picture of the causes (religious as well as political) behind Alexius Comnenus’ request for assistance, Urban II’s call to arms, and the emnity between the Fatimids and ‘Abbysids in the Levant. As Asbridge repeatedly shows, doctirnal divisions between both Christians (Byzantine Orthodox and Latin Catholics) and Muslims (Shi’ii and Sunni) provided leverage for both sides in the conflict.Throughout the book, Asbridge critically reevaluates previous scholarship (most notably by historian Steven Runciman

⭐, but also by John Gillingham

⭐and Lyons and Jackson

⭐to name a few) and recent historical and archeological work in the field. His reevaluation of Richard I’s (“Richard Lionheart”) slaughter of 2600 Muslim prisoners was particularly interesting: the event is seen by some as evidence of western barbarism, by others as proof of Richard’s bloodthirstiness – Asbridge, putting it in a strategic context, sheds new light on it. In a similar vein, Asbridge reconsders several key battles during the Crusades: the seige of Antioch, the seige and conquest of Acre and the battle of Hattin (reimagined in

⭐).His discsusion of the discovery of the Templar castle at Jacob’s Ford – and what it is telling us about the constuction of fortifications, Crusader heirarchy and warfare – was riveting. The same is true of his discussion of medieval tactics and the customs of medieval warfare the ‘informal rules of engagement’ practiced in the 3rd Crusade.The salient feature that most non-medievalists miss (or misunderstand) about the Crusades was the role of economics. Asbridge visits and revisits the economic underpinnings of Crusades, showing how even in the midst of acrimonious combat, a thriving world of commerce continued unabated during the Crusades, developing “such close ties of commercial interdependence that (by the 13th century) the Muslims of Syria and Egypt preferred to allow Crusaders to retain their meagre footholds along the coast, rather than risk an interruption of trade and income.” (546) The importance and role of econmics in the 4th Crusade are also reconsidered by Asbridge.Asbridge concludes his history with a close examination of the importance of the Crusades to the medieval world as well as to our own time. His observations are important. Essentially, he argues, there is a disjuncture of popular perception of the Crusades. Current rhetoric projects an “undying and embittered war of religion between Islam and the West” which the Crusades never were. To do so is irresponsible and a dangerous manipulation and misrepresentation of history. Along these lines, the very term ‘crusade’ has been misappropriated to mean “a just cause” (as in “crusade for the truth”), dissassociating it from its medieval devotional origins, exactly in the same way ‘jihad’ has been redefined to mean a “holy war” of arms from its devotional origin of “internal spiritual struggle.”In a book this size (my hardcover edition weighs in at just over 680 pages with an additional 57 pages of notes) there is a super-abundance of detail, which can be a bit overwhelming to readers. The style is academic, but it is clearly written for the layperson. The maps (there are 16) are clear, easy to read and very helpful in understanding routes of march, trade and strategy. For those interested in further study, his bibliography is extensive. Highly recommended.

⭐An excellent companion book to “The Crusades through Arab Eyes” by Amin Maalouf….Two sides to the story, and an “eye-opener” to the atrocities (common at that time), and the fact that, politically, the Arab world has not changed much in over 1000 years.Wish they would just grow up and dump the hatred!

⭐Habe das Buch als historische Backgroundinfo zu Lessings Nathan und der Saladinbiographie Marins von 1754 gegengelesen. Ist jetzt nicht grad ein Geschichtsschmöker, den man verschlingt, aber für eine Darstellung aller Kreuzzüge sehr gut lesbar, hat auch durchaus Nachschlagewert. Und es ist doch interessant, wie sich im Laufe der Zeit die Sichtweise auf bekannte Teilnehmer der Kreuzzüge geändert hat. Eindringlich und gelungen ist die Darstellung Balduins IV., die mich angerührt hat. Man bekommt Lust, vertiefend zu einzelnen Kreuzzügen oder Persönlichkeiten zu lesen und sich die Schauplätze anzusehen. Seufz.A detailed and well balanced account of the Crusades. For anyone interested in this period of history Asbridge offers a detailed and complex yet gripping narrative. The audio book format makes it even more enjoyable! Well worth a purchase!

⭐This is an impressive book. This book is never boring and it seems that every chapter would make a good movie. It is amazing, too, how much detailed history seems to have survived from this era. The history of the crusades is both tragic and interesting and worth knowing to help understand Western history.

⭐This very comprehensive body of work is elegantly written and a true page turner. Asbridge claims to take a neutral stand and discusses both Christian and Muslim perspectives on the history of the wars over the Holy Land.Popular view holds that the Crusaders were bands of thugs and thieves looking for loot and land. The author goes at great length to prove that this view must be discarded. The costs of going on a crusade, of “taking the Cross” were immense and not few knights had to mortgage their possessions to participate. It woud have been easier and more profitable just to stay home. Asbridge holds that the Crusaders foremost drive to take up the Cross was religious fervor. This however leaves the savage conquest and sack of Constsantinopel during the fourth crusade unaccounted for. Asbridges chapter, or rather paragraph, on this issue is conveniently brief.A sense of dissatisfaction remains at the conclusion of this book. Christians and Muslims alike seized the Holy Land by force of arms, committing unspeakable atrocities and violently subduing the people who had settled there peacefully, Muslims, Jews and Christians. Regardless of your position, one cannot deny that the Crusades were deplorable acts of violence and agression. You cannot make a crime less of a crime simply by establishing that you are not the only one committing it.

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