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Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.0 / 5.0
Excellent A fantastic history which unashamedly comes down on the Muslim side, as indeed any objective reading of crusades history would have to. This is one of the few books that looks at crusades thoroughly from both sides, however one criticism is her use of sources, most are second hand and most on the Islamic side come from just two book (the excellent Crusades through Arab Eyes being one). The discussion regarding the Franks is informative especially that regarding Fredrick II, though the more contempary... more info
The Epic History Karen Armstrong has written a brilliant narrative of the Crusades, in a unique and engrossing fashion.
This large book, deals with every single Crusade that took place (1 - 13), and shows how they effected today's world in the Bush era. The Byzantium empire, the forming of Israel, and the Mongol campaign that ran parallel are all covered, jumping back and forth in time, but in and understandable and logical fashion. Unbiased accounts are given of the acts and events of the age, and no religion is made to... more info
Ambitious Effort In HOLY WAR Karen Armstrong presents a sweeping history of religious conflicts in the Middle East from the time of Pope Urban II in the eleventh century to the current age. The central theme of the book can be summarized as follows: The Crusades in the Holy Land during the Middle Ages have a direct influence on the troubles in the Middle East today. Holy Wars are a response to trauma. A close look at the First Crusade in 1096 shows that the Jihad had fallen into disuse until it was revived to counter the... more info
Masterful psycho-historical study Just when you thought virtually all of the ways of being in the modern world--psychological, cultural, economic and political--came bursting into consciousness like fireworks in either the technology of the 20th century or the nationalism of the 19th, Armstrong reveals that to be one of the biggest and most destructive myths of our time. In HOLY WAR, Karen Armstrong shows the paradoxically religious and inhumanly violent shadow psyche of the Western European world to be born not during the age of the... more info
