Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade [Hardcover]

James Reston Jr. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2001

The epic story of the battle for the Holy Land and the two larger-than-life figures at its center.

James Reston, Jr., the author of Galileo: A Life (called "masterful" and "brilliant" by the Washington Post) and the critically lauded The Last Apocalypse, a stunningly original portrait of the Christian world at the turn of first millennium, now re-creates the collision of the Christian holy wars and the Muslim jihad at the end of the twelfth century. A dual biography of the legendary Richard the Lionheart and the Sultan Saladin, iconic hero of the Islamic world, Warriors of God recounts the life of each man and reveals the passions of the times that brought them face-to-face in the final battle of the Third Crusade.

Richard the Lionheart, commonly depicted as the romantic personification of chivalry, here emerges in his full complexity and contradictions as Reston examines the dark side of Richard's role as the leader of the blood-soaked Crusades and breaks new ground by openly discussing Richard's homosexuality. Reston's compelling portrait of Saladin brings to life the wise, highly cultured leader who realized an enduring Arab dream by uniting Egypt and Syria and whose conquest of Jerusalem not only sparked the Third Crusade but ignited the first jihad and turned Saladin into a hero of epic proportions. In riveting descriptions, Reston captures the fascinating clash of the two armies as they battled their way to the outskirts of Jerusalem. There, Saladin's brilliant maneuvers and Richard's sudden failure of nerve turned the tide. Sweeping readers into a mesmerizing period of history, Warriors of God is a provocative look at two towering leaders and the not always noble causes for which they fought.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Throughout the medieval era, the Holy Land was a fiercely contested battlefield, fought over by huge Muslim and Christian armies, by zealots and assassins. The Third Crusade, spanning five years at the end of the 12th century, was, writes James Reston Jr. in this absorbing account, "Holy War at its most virulent," overseen by two great leaders, the Kurdish sultan Salah ad-Din, or Saladin, and the English king Richard, forevermore known as Lionheart.

Writing with a keen sense of historical detail and drama, Reston traces the complex path by which Saladin and Richard came to face each other on the field of battle. The Crusades, he observes, began "as a measure to redirect the energies of warring European barons from their bloody, local disputes into a 'noble' quest to reclaim the Holy Land from the 'infidel'." Of the five Crusades over 200 years, only the first was successful, to the extent that the Christian armies were able to conquer their objective of Jerusalem. The Third Crusade, as Reston ably shows, was complicated by fierce rivalries among the Christian leaders, by a chain of military disasters that led to the destruction of an invading German army and its emperor, and by the dedication of an opposing Islamic army that shared both a goal and a language.

Saladin, Reston writes, was a brilliant leader and a merciful victor, but capable of costly errors; Richard was extraordinarily skilled at combat, but his lack of resolve cost him many battles, and, ultimately, Jerusalem. Richard returned to Europe, Saladin to Damascus. Neither leader has long to live, and the peace they made would soon be broken. James Reston's splendid book does them both honor while examining a conflict that has never really ended. --Gregory McNamee

From Publishers Weekly

Chronicling the often inglorious exploits during the third crusade (1187-1192) of King Richard I of England and Saladin, the sultan of Egypt, Syria, Arabia and Mesopotamia, Reston's panoramic narrative begins with the first crusade, launched by Pope Urban II in the last years of the 11th century. In the story's unfolding, we are privy to a world peopled by a bevy of characters, compelling and repulsive: starving, horse-and-grass-eating Christian soldiers, who, in sturdier moments, cut down the enemy with something akin to religious relish; mighty Muslim swimmers, traversing ocean waters and trailing leather pouches heavy with money and messages; the seafaring ghost of St. Thomas of Canterbury, urging onward fearful and flagging crusaders; Christian and Muslim men who betray gleefully savage contempt for women of all confessions. Some passages lend this account the flavor of historical fiction, complete with the requisite romance: a purported sexual liaison between Richard the Lionheart and King Philip Augustus of France. This is, nonetheless, a worthwhile introduction for those eager to be swept along by an often lively narrative thick with disturbing and provocative details. The interweaving of Islamic perspectives with those of Christians is especially valuable. This frankly accessible work may capture the imagination of those who have thus far resisted the pull of crusade history, presenting, as it does, both the extraordinary and less well known participants for whom this peculiar drama was the stuff of everyday life.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (May 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385495617
• ISBN-13: 978-0385495615
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (85 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #302,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #34 in Books > History > Middle East > Syria

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An absorbing, puzzling read...., August 3, 2002

By 

Christian Williamson (Columbia, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade (Paperback)

Mr. Reston has produced an entertaining book about the Third
Crusade. Indeed, I stopped all other activities in my busy schedule to
finish the book.

Until I read this book, I had encountered very little about the
Crusades. Last year I read Karen Armstrong's "Islam," in which a few
paragraphs address the subject. So, to this point, most of my knowledge
comes from "Warriors of God."

There were a few things that struck me as odd about the book. First, no
footnotes. The book is full of odd and marvelous stories, and I wanted
to look up their sources. However, without the footnotes I could not do
that. Reston does provide a list of primary and secondary sources, but
it's unfortunate that he didn't give us more detail in footnotes.

Second, I was struck by his sympathies with the Muslims and relative
disdain for the Christians. I have no idea if his judgments are accurate
or not, but I did find it odd that his description of Saladin was so
deferential. This may be my westerner's view of things getting in the
way, but it's what I experienced when reading the book.

Finally, I couldn't tell what was true and what was not. Periodically
Reston would judiciously point out that a certain scribe might be
inflating figures or portraying his master in too favorable a light. But
then Reston doesn't use the same critical thinking, for example, about
the blood flowing in the streets of Jerusalem during the First
Crusade. It seemed to me that it would have helped if Reston had
supported that bit of lore with a not pointing out how it could be true
-- by some calculations in geometry -- that the Crusaders were literally
wading in the blood of their victims.

Despite my puzzlement, I heartily recommend Mr. Reston's book. It brings
the Third Crusade to life, the way a good novel would, but it still
retains authority as a historical account of the events of that time.

140 of 167 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Poor scholarship, April 6, 2005

By 

Historian (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade (Paperback)

Reston's work serves as a perfect example of poor scholarship. The fact that this work was not intended by the author to be a scholarly study does not excuse its lack of historical basis. As other reviewers have written, Reston attributes thoughts and motivations to his "characters" without any shred of historical evidence. In effect, much of this work is nothing more than historical fiction. It almost appears as if Reston quickly read over the primary sources along witha few secondary sources and simply filled in the blanks with his own ideas. Also, as in keeping with the worst of modern popular history, Reston simplifies the 3rd Crusade by portraying all Western European Crusaders as barbaric, evil, greedy, and intolerant while Saladin and other Muslims are civilized, goodhearted, generous, and tolerant. Such distinctions sometimes make for good sales in a politcally-correct market, but they don't do anything to advance any type of historical learning amongst the public. One of Reston's most unforgivable errors is his treatment of Richard the Lionheart's sexuality. Numerous times, he libels Richard (and Philip Augustus) by calling him a homosexual. The FACT is that there is ZERO historical evidence for this claim, and no serious historian believes it. The charge is based on one line referring to Richard and Philip sharing a bed together -- a common medieval metaphor used to describe the closeness of a political bond not personal sexual relations.

This work will give the reader a decent general history of the 3rd Crusade, but those not familiar with the era may have a difficult time separating Reston's facts from his fictions. I advise readers to go in a different direction. Unfortunately, a good work on the 3rd Crusade alone surprisingly doesn't exist. Geoffrey Regan's "Lionhearts", while not perfect, is a superior work to Reston's. "Lionhearts" is a dual biography of both Richard and Saladin and covers the 3rd Crusade in the last half of the book. John Gillingham, arguably the world's foremost Richard I scholar, has written a great biography, "Richard I". The 3rd Crusade is covered well in the book. Most general histories of the crusades cover the 3rd Crusade more accurately than Reston. See works by Payne, Madden, Riley-Smith, etc. One warning: An earlier reviewer stated that Runciman's 3-volume History of the Crusades is an unbiased source that lets the reader decide for himself. While Runciman's work is indeed very valuable (I like it for a number of reasons), it's certainly not unbiased. Runciman has a clear pro-Byzantine bias and openly criticizes the motivations and actions of the Crusaders. In fact, he calls the Crusades "a long line of intolerance" and "a sin agaist the Holy Ghost" -- hardly the statements of a historian that leaves moral conclusions to the reader.

53 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you are looking for a great book you can't put down...., May 21, 2001

By 

"[e-mail]" (Spokane, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade (Hardcover)

This is it. Reston has taken an important piece of history and its main characters, Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, and brought them to life. With clarity and detail, we are taken into 12th Century Middle East and European politics surrounding Jerusalem. At the same time we also learn new facts exposing a critical component of the conflicts gripping the same region today. The Third Crusade was sparked by the actions of Chatillon, Price of Kerak, a European stronghold in the Middle East. Despite a peace treaty, Chatillon attacked a camel train belonging to Saladin. When the European King of Jerusalem demand Chatillon make restitution, Chatillon replied: "Just as he is the lord of his land, I am the lord of my land. I have no truce with the Arabs." As Reston writes, "Chatillon's treachery had elevated Saladin prestige throughout his empire and made his cause righteous...A chain reaction began." Change a few words and this could be written about the conflict in the Middle East during the last year.

From this starting point the book just gets better with an understanding that only an experienced historian can develop and a storytelling that only a gifted writer can produce. Reston has proved himself both. This is a worthy companion to his earlier books, Galileo, A Life and The Last Apocalypse.