Customer Reviews

The New Concise History of the Crusades

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I just finished reading Thomas Madden's "A New Concise History of the Crusades". I have recently become an interested student of the Crusades, and this is the third book I have read on the topic. The book gave me thorough overview of the various Crusades, when they occurred, and who the major players were. I think the word concise is very appropriate, as Prof. Madden covers all the Crusades to the Middle East and Africa, from the first in 1096 to the seventh in 1270, as well as several other Crusades within Europe in 225 pages.

I think a reader interested in discovering the basics regarding the Crusades would do well to read this book as a starting point to other studies. Madden's select bibliography offers a considerable number of resources for further study, and he offers helpful comments on each of the resources cited.

I was particularly interested in the author's approach regarding the various myths surrounding the Crusades, although I would have liked to see his points developed a little more fully. Those arguments are apparently beyond the scope of this work, and will require further investigation through the sources he cited.

In summary however, I found the book enjoyable and it has piqued my interest in further study of the topic.

This book is great for beginners. The writing is smooth and lively, and the author doesn't overwhelm you with too much useless information. Once you're done with this book, if you're interested, you should move on to the books by Jonathan Riley-Smith (we're using them at school). His books contain more information but they are more difficult; I would not recommend them for beginners. You should start with this.

Both Thomas Madden and Jonathan Riley-Smith take a refreshingly balanced approach. They do not paint the Crusades and Imperialism with the same brush, as if the crusaders were just a bunch of greedy European Christians out to plunder innocent Muslim lands. This is currently the popular view; but it confuses the greed of secular imperialists with the piety of devout crusaders. Furthermore, it assumes that Islam spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Southern Spain 'innocently.'

Instead, the Crusades were armed pilgrimages to the holy land with three main objectives: a) to come to the aid of Eastern Christians who were under threat by Muslim forces, b) to recapture some of the territory which was recently conquered by Muslim forces, and c) to improve relations with the Eastern Church. Unfortunately, the Crusades eventually failed in all three of these areas.

Once a crusade was launched it was difficult to control, and too many atrocities took place along the way. Two common examples of such atrocities are the massacring of Jews in Germany during the First Crusade, and the sacking of the city of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. Nevertheless, these atrocities were never the initial intentions of the Crusades. Thomas Madden explains all of this in a very fair way. He neither shies away from the ugliness of these atrocities nor uses them to justify an anti-Catholic/pro-secular rant.

A breath of fresh air.

For once, here is an author who is not scared of writing a good and well balanced book about the crusades.
The author is trying to make us understand both side of the issues, he is very fair and allow us to make our own decisions about the truth behind the motives of each sides.
This book is full of great information, has great details and tells us a great deal about the mentality of each participant, should it be the European nobles, the clergy, Popes, knights or muslims, their leaders and followers.
If you are an history buff like me you will really enjoy this book.
Easy to read and understand.
If you are not an apologist and have an open mind you will enjoy Thomas F. Madden's great work.

The author of this book is the most distinguished historian of the crusades in the U.S. I worried, though, that his erudition would make the book overly complex and unreadable. I shouldn't have worried! This book is a joy to read. Madden brings out the tension, excitement, and human drama of the crusades. Best of all, it is not the usual rehash of tired cliches, but instead the story is based on the best and most recent research. This is that rare book that appeals not only to professional historians, but also to interested general readers as well. If you want to know the truth about the crusades, grab this book!

Thomas F. Madden's New Concise History of the Crusades is an outstanding brief history of one of the most complex and confusing periods in world history. Though just over 200 pages long, Madden's book covers all of the major crusading movements in the middle east in a brisk, streamlined manner that makes the continuity between the various crusades perfectly clear.

While such brevity would normally impair the effectiveness of a history of something as vast as the Crusades, brevity is actually this book's greatest strength. Madden proves himself the C.S. Lewis of Crusade history, skilfully tackling complex subjects and distilling them into digestible ideas with a mere paragraph or two. He makes abundantly clear what motivated and inspired the Crusaders and just as easily charts the changes wrought in their ideals and goals over the course of two centuries in the Holy Land.

Make no mistake--the bulk of the book details the crusading expeditions to the east. Don't buy this book expecting extensive treatment of the Reconquista or the activities of the Teutonic Knights. Though limited in its scope, this book outlines its subject with perfect clarity and a keen understanding of the medieval mind.

Of exceptional value is Madden's conclusion, in which he dispels the popular belief that the Crusades are the outright cause of modern radical Islamic aggression, pointing out that the post-WWI colonialism of the French and British has much more to do with our current struggles in the middle east than the wars fought by medieval Christendom.

Overall, an outstanding introduction to the Crusades for the beginner and an outstanding review for those already familiar with the period.

Highly recommended.

Although it delivered on the promise of being concise, unlike most abbreviated accounts covering such a large expanse of history, Madden packs an amazing amount of information in his book while fully covering the subject and at the same time writing with a style that makes it a real page-turner. Best of all, unlike so much other garbage being turned out by academic historians today, Madden never lowers himself into the sewer of political correctness. The final chapter on the legacy of the crusades was up-to-date and insightful. This book would make a great supplemental text for any world history class.

Anyone wanting to learn something about the Crusades is in a bit of a quandary: either dive into the deep end with one of the major histories, or be content with briefer accounts in encyclopedias or general history books. In the first case, you're likely to be overwhelmed; in the latter, to come away feeling unsatisfied.

I think Madden has done a pretty good job of staying the middle course. By carefully balancing dry facts with colorful details, he manages to cover the main events without being dull. The book leaves me wanting to know more, but in a good way, because he has succeeded in highlighting so many fascinating aspects of the times.

One caveat: the book is (perhaps by necessity) weak on military detail. Numbers of troops are seldom given, major battles are dealt with in a sentence or two, and we learn little about the siege engines that played so large a part in these campaigns.

This was the first book I ever read about the Crusades. I felt I needed some historical background for the Christian-Muslim tension that we see all around the world today. This book presented the subject in an unbias way that left me feeling I could draw some informed opinions on the subject. To be frank, some of my conclusions were not what I expected them to be prior to reading the book. I am not a good reader. It is a struggle for me to get through a book. I looked forward to reading this book every evening until I finished. It left me wanting to learn more about the subject. One last thing...it is only 225 pages and I would recommend it to anyone with an interest in the subject.

In today's world -where complex historical events are pared down to sound-byte sized blurbs and widely propagated as the "truth" of one agenda or a collection of agendas, more works such as Thomas F. Madden's are increasingly needed -for the general populus (as well those of open mind in academia). This work, very well researched by an accomplished scholar, provides and excellent and accurate survey type account of the "Crusades" - which can be used an excellent snap-shot or as a guide to further study and more accurate understanding of what this portion of history really was about and its influence on today's world situation. Ideal for the average person who wants more understanding than can be found in "popular media" as well as those pursuing more dedicated scholarship on this subject. Highly recommended as a view, not as "popular" as today's PC world dictates, of how the events in the beginning of the 21st Century - are connected with those -unlearned history lessons - from 1000 years ago.

One of the marks of a great teacher of history is the ability to tell a good story. In this book, Thomas Madden succeeds in telling the story of the crusades as if it really were the human drama that it is.

The book is written for people who know little to nothing about the Crusades, and it renders a valuable service to a culture that needs to take a fresh look at a movement whose consequences have been widespread, but often misunderstood. First of all, he explains the mentality of medieval Europeans, which helps the reader understand the crusaders on their own terms. Second, he tells the story of each of the major crusades, recounting enough so that the reader gets a good understanding of who the major characters were and what they did--both good and bad.

Third, in the final chapter, Dr. Madden summarizes the history of how the crusades have been understood during the various historical periods after the crusade era (Enlightenment, Romantic, Colonial, etc.), both in the West and in the Mid-East. I would go so far as to say that this chapter is the most interesting in the book. His conclusions are not all that provocative among Crusade historians, though they may surprise you, given the way in which the Crusades are generally understood in the modern West.

This is the first book I have read that deals exclusively with the Crusades. Dr. Madden is Professor of History at St. Louis University and a leading Crusade historian. He also communicates very well with the intelligent non-specialist. This is a fine book, engagingly written, and I happily recommend it to anyone who doesn't know much about the Crusades and wants to hear the story from a bona fide expert.