Customer Reviews

A Concise History of the Crusades (Critical Issues History)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
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This book is an excellent "first read" for those with an interest in the Crusades. Thomas Madden's writing is clear and to the point -- um, concise -- and he provides the necessary background when needed (For example, on the rise of Islam). The organization of the book is strictly chronological, making it easy to follow the ebb and flow of the various Crusades. The maps are sufficient to the purpose, though not exceptional. When things get a little complicated -- such as keeping track of the various rulers of the Crusader states -- Madden errs on the side of brevity, to keep the story moving. This allows the reader to take in the sweep of the crusading movement -- the countless errors, massacres, double-crosses, etc. on all sides.

As a sort of "bonus", Madden attempts explain the mindset of the Crusaders -- what was it about the Middle Ages that would cause Europeans to take up arms and leave their homes? Personally, I didn't see this so much as a defense or rationalization of Christianity. (Madden also relates Crusades against Christian "heretics" in Europe.) Others may take a different view. But that's the benefit of the book -- it serves as an exposition for further study...or continued debate.

For those who have read books about the Crusades written by those who try to find some "balance" between the competing interests of current Middle East territory, this book is a refreshing look at what actually happened. While most of the globe has seen conquest of one form or another, and in some places, many times, this is one book that puts the Crusades in perspective. The Crusades were essentially an attempt to reestablish a Christian presence in the Levant after its conquest by the Islamic forces which swept across Northern Africa and the Middle East after the death of Mohammed. Madden gives us many interesting details of how the Crusades were beaten back by divisions within the Christian community of Europe just as much as they were beaten by the followers of Islam. One of the most intriguing issues is the treatment of how the pagan and Jewish communities were displaced initially by the followers of Christ through conversion to Christianity without force of arms, followed by armed invasions of Islamists who took possession of the area by way of the sword instead of by way of persuasion. The Crusades were essentially a movement to take back these formerly Christian enclaves the only way they could, through force of arms inasmuch as the Koran and its interpreters and enforcers prohibits any kind of freedom of religion as we know it in the West today. It is one of the reasons that there are no Christian churches allowed in Saudi Arabia today, where even observing a Christian service is prohibited. A fact which is always glossed over by Islamic apologists who misrepresent history today. This book has a lot of history, without the stridency of Trifkovic's "The Sword of the Prophet" which is an equally good, if not better, book.

This is a very readable and accessible "Reader's Digest" version of the history of the crusading movement that emerged in Medieval Europe during the late 10th century. Madden is a recognized medieval scholar who teaches at Saint Louis University, and who has authored or edited several other works on the Crusades. In just 249 pages Madden does an excellent job of navigating his reader through the complex web of political entanglements and considerations that occasionally resulted in behavior that could hardly be stranger if it were fiction. Misconceptions about the crusaders and their motivations are addressed in the light of more recent scholarship, and Madden also challenges the conclusion that the Crusades were ultimately a failure. This is a macro cultural and political look at the Crusades. Anyone looking for specifics on tactics and individual battles, or details on arms and armor, should look elsewhere.

There are 14 maps scattered throughout and a short glossary of terms. A handful of black and white photographs of various ruins from the era are also thrown in, but they are so few one wonders why they even bothered. One very helpful addition is a select bibliography that contains a brief survey on Crusade scholarship and the strengths and weaknesses of some of the major works on the subject. This is an excellent book for anyone looking for a balanced introduction to the Crusades. It will leave you wanting more.

Madden presents an excellent and objective case for the real foundations of the Crusades. The two Crusading pillars were, first, a military response to invading Muslims and, second, an overwhelming commitment to theological presuppositions. Medieval Europe was committed to a universal standard of truth. They really believed in souls eternally perishing or eternally flourishing. These ontological and epistemological underpinnings came to fruition in the defense of Europe known as the Crusades. Most of all, this book returns to the post-"post-modern" commitment to real, objective, and honest scholarship. Post-modernism perverts all that it touches, to include history. Madden addresses this perversion head on with accurate historical data that demolishes post-modernism's strangling of the truth.

Brilliant treatise on a subject important to the formation of European culture and therefore to American culture. The entire crusade movement is either vastly misunderstood or avoided by the western world. Madden clears away any notion of guilt for the American decendants of Europeans. Easily read and yet throughly researched and footnoted. A Consise History is exactly as advertised; concise, enlightening, entertaining, and understandable.

If you know nothing of the Crusades, this excellent little book will bring you up to speed. However, keep in mind that the Crusades span several hundred years, consisting of distinct (often disjoint) episodes of history, while this book spans fewer than 200 pages. As a result, most of the context and many of the details, which can be fascinating, are omitted. Enough remains to keep it interesting and sometimes entertaining.

If you are familiar with the Crusades, Madden provides an objective viewpoint and some (necessarily speculative) discussion of the economic and political forces that shaped them.

Great book to read for anyone wanting to get a quick learn about the Crusades. This book is very exciting and very informative. Only one problem, Concise means Concise, don't expect to get too many details. But great for anyone wanting a starting point.

I found this book to be a very pleasant surprise--- yes it is concise but it is written in an efficient style and one thus derives more than it's size or promise.
I thought it to be an intersting book --- especially for those of us who had very limited information on the subject.
I highly recommend this book for anyone looking to get a very good overview of the subject.

The Crusades remain the most misunderstood and misconstrued movement in human history. The Holy Land has been fought over since time out of mind, and has been held variously by Moslems, Christians, Jews, Romans, Persians, Babylonians, Canaanites, and probably people before that whom the Canaanites killed. Yet the Christians are the only people who held the land without taking it by conquest. Roman pagans ran out Second Temple Judaism and destroyed Jerusalem, then rebuilding a city with another name in that spot. Christians of all other lands used the good Roman roads to get there by pilgrimage and many stayed. When the Roman Empire became Christian, the Christians held the Holy Land suddenly without a blow struck. And only because of Christian involvement did Jerusalem receive back its time honored name. However, during the period when Jerusalem was in "Christian" hands (there never has been a "Christian" people or nation, but while Christian people had governance in the Holy Land), Seljuk Turks came in and took the land and Jerusalem by conquest. Apparently they put many people to the sword and were pretty violent at first, but settled down, despite the fact that Christians and Jews had to wear individually identifiable clothing, and were distinctly second-class citizens. Then one of the new governors burned down the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the holiest place in Christendom. This raised the ire of Christians in Europe even more than the Arab conquest. No immediate movement was organized, for Europe was still recovering from the end of the Viking age. But as word came back not only of the laws against Christians (esp. against evangelism, which has been the whole purpose of the Church since Pentecost, when it started), but atrocities -- some real, some vividly imagined -- a largescale public movement began to free the Holy Land from the Moslem conquerors.

The Church, unlike the public at large, was as divided over the Crusades as anything in its history: part of it thought the whole thing was foolishness and should not be prosecuted; part of it thought a good thing to liberate the Holy Land; and part of it, seeing knights were going to fight anyway, should go and fight Moslems rather than other Christians.

In any case, after that point many waves of Crusaders went to the Holy Land, with varying degrees of success. At one time, the Christians had foothold enough to have a king in Jerusalem, and might've stayed but for the brilliant Saladin. The greatest was the Third Crusade; but he homesickness of many of the leaders, and their almost Viet Nam esque half-hearted prosecution of the Crusade, for all practical purposes, ended the Christian hope of realizing a liberation of the Holy Land.

Throughout history, of course, many societies have tried to shape the Crusades to reflect their own propaganda, most especially the Arab world, which would have us believe that the Crusades were not, as Madden proves with exquisite scholarship, a defensive war; and the Victorians, who lived in a society where again, as during the Crusades, the church and culture were so aligned that the Victorian facade of "morality" unfortunately rubbed off on the Church. In the 20th century, many people who rebelled against "the Church" were really rebelling against Victorianism, and were too ignorant themselves on what the Church actually stood for to tell the two apart. By the modern age of multiculturalism (which is really the reverse of which Victorian empirealism is the obverse), the Church in its 2000 years could do no right in the eyes of the self-proclaimed intelligensia, and the Crusades were universally condemned.

Madden makes a very good attempt to put the Crusades in their PROPER context, and it's good to see a scholarly book that tries to get the truth through the constant noise of modern propaganda. I wish Madden would write a series as widespread as Runciman's, for, as good as Runciman's books are, they are woefully outdated and need replacing with someone more open minded.

The Crusades are truly one of those most misrepresented and misunderstood items commonly brought up in normal people's conversation as though they knew what they were truly about.

Madden is a scholar who has researched this topic, and can begin to inform us to consider something other about this history than what is commonly put out in public by politicians and others with something to gain by misrepresenting the Crusades.

The Crusades are typically presented in the media in the same vein as the Salem Witch Trials and the Spanish Inquisition as prime examples of Christians inhumanity. Madden dispels this with likely the most misrepresented part of the Crusades, that of whether they were offensive or defensive. The historical evidence not filtered by modern agendas is that they were defensive, meant to simply take back Christian lands that had been overcome by raiders from other expansionist countries, i.e. Rome and Turks.

Madden's book is great for the non-scholarly in that he takes comlex data such as leaders, and distills it down to readable, interesting prose. References are available for more detailed investigation, many of which Dr. Madden has authored.

Highly recommended for that the person who wants to speak not from ignorance on sources with a bias, and begin to view the Crusades in a far truer historical light.