Customer Reviews

Fighting for Christendom: Holy War and the Crusades

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3 star:		(3)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Christopher Tyerman has composed a brief account of the history of the Crusades with an eye toward contemporary current events. For the reader who has little knowledge of the background of the Crusades, Mr. Tyerman gives a big picture overview of Christian Europe's many military operations (1095-1464 AD) to retake Jerusalem from the Muslim Arabs (who had conquered the Holy Land by 640 AD).

The writing is a readable synthesis of the diverse research he has undertaken for this book. Mr. Tyerman ties together our Crusader past with its impact upon our present day world and debunks popular myths in his concluding chapter.

For the reader who desires to read further upon the topic, I recommend Sir Steven Runciman's three volume (and 1,400 pages) magisterial epic upon the Crusades. Though published between 1951-1954, "A History of the Crusades" is a masterwork of popular writing. Jonathan Phillip's "The Fourth Crusade and the Sack Of Constantinople" is a more detail account of a crusade gone berserk.

For those who know little or nothing about the historical realities of the Crusades, this brief book lays out the territory in an economical and authoritative way. The author's iconoclastic approach is refreshing and he veers neither to the left nor the right in his efforts to set the record straight. The opening chapters are the most helpful in giving a fairly strict chronologic narrative while the latter chapters expand on certain themes previously touched on. Unfortunately much of the writing is rather dry and occasionally bogs down into lists of names and dates. The author peppers his text with ironic comments that could have enlivened it if used more liberally. The last chapter, that brings the political uses of the legacy of the Crusades up to the present, is actually the best in the book. As mentioned in my title, a good overview.

This was my first book on the crusades and I chose it based on a favorable New York Times review. I give it a lukewarm recommendation because it is so brief that it will not help the novice understand the visceral reaction Muslims have against even a mention of the crusades. You will also not learn enough about key characters, including Saladin.

This well-written book is shorter even than the book description suggests. With numerous images and generous spacing this book is really a dash through the key events and theories. While it gives a good overview of the crusades I think that someone new to this extraordinary period in history needs more.

A book does not have to be 500 pages to be great and to truly cover the topic. Even through this book is half the pages it has far too many misses to be worth reading. The author's wording is very difficult to understand what exactly he is trying to convey. I found myself re-reading passages a number of times trying to understand what exactly he means. The Author is British and sometimes the wording does not translate well to American English. Maybe its the fact that my vocabulary skills are lacking as well.
Also, the author could of spend a few extra pages discussing some of the historic figures and battles in more depth. The author seems to make a lot of interesting point but never really expands on them nor does he bring them up again during the book. Another problem of this book is the sure lack of organization. However the biggest problem I had was trying to understand the many "wordy" sentences throughout this short book and trying to put the proper meanings into prospective.
I would pass on this and move on.