The Crusades: The Flame of Islam [Paperback]

Harold Lamb (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 489 pages
• Publisher: Third World Book Shop (June 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0961600519
• ISBN-13: 978-0961600518
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,058,664 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The sweeping panorama of history comes to life., February 27, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Crusades: The Flame of Islam (Paperback)

Harol Lamb captures as well or better than any I have ever read the sweep and scope of the Crusades, the Crusaders, and the land they went to reclaim for the Cross. One is caught up in wave after wave of freebooter, noblemen, kinights and peasants that took up the challenge of the Bishop of Rome and pledged all to cleanse the Holy land of the unbeliever. When Baldwin finally takes the City of Jerusalem and storms the Temple Mount, one is left with a feeling of exaltation seldom felt in modern literature. He is equally gripping in his accouting of the excesses of the Knights Templer and others, against which Sahla Haddin (Saladin) rose up in righteouss indignation. Saladin drove the invaders who had come from Europe from the Lands of the Prophet, and cleansed the "land" from the infidel. Altogether one of the most memorable books on that period of history that I have read. His descriptions of ancient warfare are, factual, captivating and superb. He gets to the underlying motives on both sides. Why the Crusades were successful for a time, and why they were doomed to ultimate failure. He also shows why there is such undying animosity between the followers of the Prophet and the followers of the Nazarene.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fine, classy approach to the clash Islam/Christianity, May 20, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Prof. Lizalde) (Mexico City, National Autonomous University of) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Crusades: The Flame of Islam (Paperback)

Lamb has always been a scholar quite interested in the East, its inhabitants become real living people, our peers, and then he draws the characters, situations, and forces that build up a completely new, unseen, unheard of, historical movement. The deplacement of Europe to "regain" the Holy Land has been reviewed and studied, for the last l00 years as a phenomenon of real Christian faith, and from the point of view of the European cultures: France, England, Austria, Italy, etc. But, what about the point of view of the so-called infidels? Lamb has the skill to keep himself neutral, nevertheless he gives us the facts and gives the reader the golden opportunity: the possibility to make its own judgement, based in, more or less, non-fictional facts. And that's Lamb's greatest achivement. He novelizes a subject, but finally it is only a very valid literary resource to lead us to the precise point of human History where the author wants us; and at the same time, Lamb makes Aquinas "tolle, lege", his own. So, after reading "The Crusades", and paying careful attention to the subtitle: "The flame of Islam", we understand that greed, false piousness, false pride, ignorance; the arrogance of the self-conceited christian warriors, lustful, bored -perhaps with a tint of real faith-, made the Europeans cross the seas and barren lands to get to Jerusalem, the three-times blessed City. But, from the pages of Lamb we may be able to point out that failure of the enterprise was due, from the 1st Crusade, to jealousy, envy, and the search of personal success.It was not their main goal to recover The Holy Land. If it had been true, they would have succeeded. Lamb has his personal favorite hero: Saladin, the most chivalrous of enemies, a very intelligent and skillful men, with a good warfare knowledge, quite learned and, by far, the most important Islam's defender of the Faith. The brilliancy of the exposition of Lamb, his excellent use of terms, and his profound knowledge of the ! East provide the ambience. His academic background provides real historical facts, and, ...you have in your hands a must-be-read book!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Cruzade of Culture, May 15, 2000

By 

Carlos E. Silva (Rio de Janeiro, RJ Brazil) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Crusades: The Flame of Islam (Paperback)

This book is the sequence of the marvelous Iron Men and Saints, and altough the last is still way ahead with the seizure of Antioch and Jerusalem, the Flame of Islam brings the Generalship of Saladin and the of the Great english warrior King Richard Coeur de Lion. A must read. And a plus to culture.