|
The First Crusade: A New History: The Roots of Conflict between Christianity and Islam | 
 enlarge | Author: Thomas Asbridge
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy Used: $7.49
You Save: $12.50 (63%)
New (24) Used (28) from $7.49
Rating:  40 reviews
Sales Rank: 215797
Media: Paperback
Pages: 448
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0195189051
Dewey Decimal Number: 956.014
EAN: 9780195189056
ASIN: 0195189051
Publication Date: September 29, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Ex library HARDCOVER. This is NOT a paperback. Dustjacket with protective mylar. Usual library markings. In very good condition, inside and out. Clean, unmarked copy. Same cover picture.
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In The First Crusade, Thomas Asbridge offers a gripping account of a titanic three-year adventure filled with miraculous victories, greedy princes, and barbarity on a vast scale. Beginning with the electrifying speech delivered by Pope Urban II on the last Tuesday of November in the year 1095, readers will follow the more than 100,000 men who took up the call from their mobilization in Europe (where great waves of anti-Semitism resulted in the deaths of thousands of Jews), to their arrival in Constanstinople, an exotic, opulent city--ten times the size of any city in Europe--that bedazzled the Europeans. Featured in vivid detail are the siege of Nicaea and the pivotal battle for Antioch, the single most important military engagement of the entire expedition, where the crusaders, in desparate straits, routed a larger and better equipped Muslim army. Through all this, the crusaders were driven on by intense religious devotion, convinced that their struggle would earn them the reward of eternal paradise in Heaven. But when a hardened core finally reached Jerusalem in 1099 they unleahsed an unholy wave of brutality, slaughtering thousands of Muslims--men, women, and children--all in the name of Christianity. The First Crusade marked a watershed in relations between Islam and the West, a conflict that set these two world religions on a course toward deep-seated animosity and enduring enmity. The chilling reverberations of this earth-shattering clash still echo in the world today.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...
 Taking the Cross October 24, 2004
Mykal Banta (Boynton Beach, FL USA)
71 out of 81 found this review helpful
This is a wonderful book. The author, Thomas Asbridge, has written a taut, clear account of a time in history that, at least for me, has always seemed terribly murky and shrouded in fable.
The main strength of the book is its strong, direct, linear flow. The reader follows the First Crusade from its birth in Clermont and Pope Urban's preaching tour across France; to the Crusade's bloody finale and the Christian army's rampage through Jerusalem. Asbridge is, plain and simply, a good writer, and his vivid language bring the time and place to remarkable light. He has a good writer's eye for drama and the telling detail, and he brings in amazing writings from Crusade participants to flesh out the telling. Characters and events really came to life in my mind's eye while reading, whole landscapes and battles, so that I found myself setting the books aside more than once, simply to let the movie play for a moment. All in all, a great reading experience.
As the book progressed, I really came to visualize the Crusading armies marching from Western Europe across the known world, slowly transforming itself through the crucible of starvation, decease, horrific battles, and hardship. They had begun as an unorganized, splintered assortment of rabble and soldier, princes and false prophets, numbering perhaps 100,000 souls, barely able to mount a cohesive attack. By the time they had reached Lebanon, the army had hardened down to a pack of fast moving, ruthless veterans, sending terror through the Muslim world. Muslim cities, hearing of their barbarity, began begging for peace, throwing riches at them, usually to no avail.
Finally, this efficient juggernaut simply stormed against the heavily fortified Holy City of Jerusalem, taking it quickly and horribly despite overwhelming odds against them, then tore through the city like starved wolves, killing everything (including children and women). The image of the victorious crusaders, coming to fall in tearful prayer at the Holy Sepulchre, their faces and clothes still drenched in blood, is one of the most perfect in the book - at once capturing the strange amalgamation of genuine religious fervor and blood-curdling terror that marked the times. The author also poses many new ideas about the Crusades as well (such as his view of the effect of the religious relic, the Holy Lance, which the author feels had much less importance than is traditionally thought), which make this book good for both history novice and expert alike.
The author does a good job of viewing the times in a fair light. The magnificent achievement of the crusading armies is not understated. After reading what the soldiers and knights of this crusade went through, it is easier to understand why they truly considered many of their victories "miracles" and sure evidence of God's hand. The author does not overlook the grimmer realities of the First Crusade either, which can be summed up in this simple sentence near the end of the book: "In bitter revelation, these eastern Christians soon discovered that they had in fact been better off under Muslim rule than they were in a 'liberated' Jerusalem."
You will be glad you read this book. -Mykal Banta
A book that reads like an action movie October 26, 2004
E. Evans
53 out of 58 found this review helpful
This is one of the best history books I have read in a long time. It is incredibly well-written and contains a fascinating account about the first crusade. It will keep you riveted until the end.
Asbridge doesn't merely give a blow-by-blow of the action - although action is certainly not lacking. He explores how the crusade got started and the varied motivations of the participants. Characters like Bohemond, Godfrey of Boullion and Peter the Hermit come to life and fascinate.
One of the great strengths of this book is Asbridge's discussion of the history of crusade scholarship - the ideas scholars both modern and medieval had about why the crusade happened and how it played out. I also found that some of the things I learned in college (and I didn't graduate that long ago!) about the crusades have been disproved by further scholarship.
I always have found it ironic that, in a later crusade, western knights pillaged Constantinople when they were supposedly Christians united against a common foe. The roots of breakdown of the relationship between the crusaders and the Byzantine empire are explored, answering my questions.
Asbridge is remarkably balanced and objective when discussing the sensitive area of Christian and Muslim relations. My only complaint is that a couple of times in the beginning of the book that the author includes some snide comments about Christianity.
Kudos to Thomas Asbridge! I hope he decides to write another book about the other, less "successful" crusades.
An excellent history with a major flaw January 30, 2007
Theophilus
25 out of 31 found this review helpful
As previous reviewers have said this is a well written book that is easy to read and historically accurate. It is fairly even handed in its treatment of the crusaders and does a pretty good job of explaining their motives, actions and results.
The major flaw is that it neglects the historical context. By that I do not mean the cultural and circumstantial factors in which the first crusade took place. That is well reported. What is missing is the preceding 400 years of Islamic Jihad against the west. Mr. Asbridge asserts that because of the first crusade "The lines of discord hardened. Christendom and Islam had been set on the path to enduring conflict." Perhaps the first crusade had that effect on the attitudes of Muslims who were not used to being on the receiving end of religious violence. However, for the Christians who had been the victims of Islamic violence for the 400 years prior to the first crusade their attitudes concerning Islam as a religion of aggression and conquest had been shaped much earlier. They knew from bitter experience that Islam is a religion of bloodshed and conquest and that if not stopped all Christendom would be under its boot.
Can anyone doubt that the Islamic conquests of all of North Africa, the middle east, Spain, the "Holy Lands," and invasions in France caused "the lines of religious discord" to harden or that they set "Christendom and Islam on the path to enduring conflict?" These countries and regions all had predominantly Christian populations. Does anyone believe that those Christians thought there was no connection between Islam and the soldiers who yelled "Allah-Akbar" as they killed, pillaged and raped their way through Christian countries and homes?
All the crusades together lasted less than 200 years. That is half the time that Islamic Jihads against Christendom had taken place before the first crusade was initiated. The Muslims had also conquered large parts of India, western China and parts of Mongolia. Their wars of aggression in the name of Allah created an empire that stretched from the deserts of Mongolia all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. All of this happened before the first crusade took place. After the last crusade ended and the crusaders left the Holy Lands the Muslims resumed their intermittant Jihads for another 500 years against Europe, Central Asia, China, and elsewhere.
No, the first crusade did not set "the path to enduring conflict." It was in large part a response to centuries of Islamic aggression against the rest of the world including Christendom. This lack of perspective makes what is otherwise a good book a deficient history of the first Crusade.
The Crusades without the Anti-Christian Bias. October 7, 2005
Monty Rainey (New Braunfels, TX)
22 out of 39 found this review helpful
How refreshing it has been to finally find such an astute rendition of the Crusades without having to muddle through the usual Anti-Christian bias and the protrayal of the Muslems as innocent victims of Christian barbarism. As Asbridges's title suggest, A NEW HISTORY begins in the beginning. The First Crusade was called in 1095 in response to an urgent plea for assistance from the Byzantine Empire, the last Christian state in the East. Things had been going badly for Christians for several centuries, ever since the infestation of Muslim warriors out of Arabia in the seventh century. Egypt, Palestine, Syria, North Africa-the core of the Christian world-had been conquered by Muslim jihad warriors and subjected to Islamic rule and law. When Turkish jihad warriors invaded and conquered Asia Minor, they reduced Christendom to a tiny corner of the world.
Pope Urban II asked Christians to take up the cross and turn back these conquests as an act of penance. Thousands responded. The First Crusade, which was, in typical medieval fashion, governed by a committee of barons, marched thousands of miles across eastern Europe, crossed the Bosporus at Constantinople, and then pushed on to Nicaea, which served as the capital of the Turkish sultanate. After restoring Nicaea to the Byzantine emperor, the Crusaders crossed Anatolia and against all odds restored to Christian control the city of Antioch, one of the ancient patriarchates of Christianity. The Crusaders also acquired nearby Edessa and then continued south along the coast until they finally turned inland and caught their first glimpse of the holy city of Jerusalem. After prayers, penances, and many hardships, they captured it in July 1099.
Asbridge's history works well on many levels. He tells his story vividly, but he does not shy away from details that may muddy his otherwise clear picture. When a scholarly debate exists on a point, he brings it up forthrightly and describes it succinctly. Throughout his narrative he liberally sprinkles footnotes that direct interested readers to the best scholarship available. With knowledge of medieval siege weapons, armor, and basic army conditions, Asbridge argues that the internal command of the First Crusade was not as fractious as historians have generally believed. What really adds depth and color to this history, though, is Asbridge's familiarity with the region and the careful attention with which he describes it. Readers see the landscapes and fortifications through the eyes of someone who has studied them closely.
This is the most concise and readable volume I have found pertaining to the origin of the Crusades. I highly recomend this book.
Monty Rainey
www.juntosociety.com
Christian Holy War on Islam: Lessons from the past ! October 5, 2004
Patrick Corley (Dublin, Ireland)
19 out of 27 found this review helpful
If you're interested in the history of the Crusades, then this is a great place to start. Its about the 1st Christian Holy War on Islam around 1090: Important lessons from the past that all should know. Especially as the battle has raged on to the present, and the concept of Jihad has become familiar.
I really felt absorbed by the book, and couldn't put it down. As well as the fascinating and well balanced information in the book, the telling of the story is wonderfully skilled.The language is extremely well crafted, so much so the pages practically turn themselves. I cannot emphasise enough how much I appreciate the grace with with this book is written. Thouroughly enjoyable and educational.
|
|
|
|
| |
