Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today's World

by Karen Armstrong

Book Overview

The New York Times bestselling author of A History of God skillfully narrates the history of the Crusades with a view toward their profound and continuing influence.

Holy War brings compassion, objectivity, breadth, and imagination to the most urgent crisis of our time. --The Boston Phoenix

In 1095 Pope Urban II summoned Christian warriors to take up the cross and reconquer the Holy Land. Thus began...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385721404
• ISBN13: 9780385721400
• Release Date: November 2001
• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Length: 672 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.6" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

A Necessary Read

This book should be required reading for everyone - and especially for those who form policy in our government. Her book illustrates how important it is to remember the past to avoid being condemned to repeat it. Armstrong deftly unravels the knots of Crusade history and draws parallels with current events. Her clear uncluttered writing make her well balnced analyses easy to follow. This book reminds me somewhat of Barbara Tuchman's excellent book A DISTANT MIRROR. The Glossary of Terms is useful, as are the notes for each chapter. The author makes it clear that we all need to strive for triple vision - the viewpoints of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. At first I was disconcerted by her chapters that jumped from several hunderd years ago to the present and then back again, but then I realized this was the only way to link the past and present problems, and she does an expert job. Armstrong's evaluation of the Crusades, then colonisalism and finally combative foreign policy spares no one in the assigning of blame. It took me a long time to read the 539 pages carefully, but it was worth every minute. I highly recommend.

Timely

I was 2/3 through this book when the Sept 11 attacks occurred. I have been surprised at how little attention this earlier work has received, especially in view of bin-Laden's Holy War and Bush's response to invade Afghanistan as a "Crusade" to defend freedom.I think some personal reviews of this book miss the mark. This book was written long before Sept 11, 2001. The point Ms. Armstrong tries to make is that there are ingrained ideas that cultures carry through generations and we should look carefully at how our views have been molded by centuries of passing on tenets, perspectives, and biases. One of these in our Western culture is that related to the Crusades. She asks us to re-examine how we in the West have interpreted that era and even how we continue to use the term "crusade" as a positive, good will endeavor. This is particularly useful when trying to understand the present "Clashes of East and West" or the various Middle East conflicts.My main difficulty lies with accepting an idea suggested in this book that Muslim forces over the centuries learned the concept of holy war from the Crusades. Although there might be some truth to this, every religious-cloaked military endeavor of many cultures even before the Crusades has heard the rallying cry of Holy War. And the Islamic Empire itself was originally forged with the fervor of Holy War.

A great perspective

...I recently came across Karen Armstrong's _Holy War_,which is a book I recommend wholeheartedly. The book's basic thesisis that there is a strong connection between the Crusades from 1096 to 1300AD and the modern-day conflict between the Muslim, Jewishand Christian worlds today. The book makes this argument veryconvincingly and in a well-written, engaging style to boot. Thebook was written in 1988, but has been re-released with a newIntroduction that discusses the 9/11 attacks and points butDubya's really, REALLY poor choice of the word "Crusade" to describethe War on Terrorism. The book doesn't look at the military, or economic perspectivesof the various monotheistic holy wars, but rather the religious and emotionalunderpinnings of those wars (interestingly enough, all three religionshave a strong "Holy War" tradition - it's not just Islam). The real gem of this book is that it attempts to view the conflictfrom the three perspectives of the religions in question - and deconstructsmany myths and misunderstandings that the various religious sides havehad with regards to one another... Karen does a pretty fairtreatment of all three sides, not overly biased with one side or another,but emphasizes the story which differs from the standard Western History we learn here in the US.She then ties the Crusading experience with more modern conflicts suchas the multiple Arab-Israeli wars, the Camp David Accords (and theassassination of Sadat), the Iranian Revolution, the Israeliinvasion of Lebanon, the rebirth of "jihad" in this century, and theintefadah in the 1980s, etc.The book has been a real eye opener on many fronts, and if you'dlike to try and "get in the shoes" and see the conflict frommultiple perspectives, and not just read the headlines butreally put multiple centuries of context to them, you'llreally want this book... she takes all three sides to task at various times - but even if that is the case, it's useful in that it takes the reader out of the Western dogma, and more perspectives can't help but increase understanding.

The Other Side of the Story

Ms. Armstrong has presented the other side of the story of the Middle East -- one that differs from the (Orthodox) position of Western Civilization historians. She has managed to put a human face on the Islamic civilizations that inhabited the Middle East prior to the Crusades and general westernization of the rest of the world. Reading this book in light of the 11 September events, gives a new, and chilling, perspective on the nature of what is happening in the world. In one, almost prophetic, sentence she alludes to the potential for a Western-Islamic Cold war in the 21st Century. I'm not sufficiently versed in all the aspects of scholarship in this area to know if hers is 100%, I do know that many of the current situations do seem to link back to events that shaped the nature of the Middle and Near-East to become what they are today. I did have my eyes opened, and can see her point of the "Three Sided" nature of the area. Read this book if you want to get an insight to a view of the story that you will not get in the news today. Add the new information to what you read in this book and then draw your conclusions -- they may frighten you totally.

A great book... too bad it's out of print.

This book will give you a really good understanding of how three faiths have fought over the "holy land". Its main study is of the crusades, but it also goes into really good detail of the conflicts in the modern-day middle east. It shows that there are many similarities and recurring themes in the crusades and the modern conflict. I was very impressed with her knowledge and objectivity.