
A Concise History of the Crusades
Madden, Thomas F
1999, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 0-8476-9429-1, $22.95, hb; 0-8476-9430-5, $12.95, pb
This excellent short history of the crusades to the Holy Land rejects the notion that most crusaders’ primary motivation was mercenary rather than religious, and nicely balances military with political history. Madden interestingly discusses the difficult diversion of crusader fervor to domestic targets such as the Albigensians, and argues that the papacy’s fixation on Muslim expansion left the church vulnerable to the internal threat of Protestantism.
You may also be interested in...
British Library’s 500-Year-Old Nizami Manuscripts Shed Light on Power of Art and Poetry in 12th-Century Herat
Persian and Mughal scholar and specialist Barbara Brend presents a comprehensive study of one of the most highly esteemed works of Persian Literature.Omani Author Zahran Alqasmi's Story About Life, Land and Honey
In his third novel, about a beekeeper living in Oman’s mountainous interior, local author Zahran Alqasmi grapples with a changing landscape around him.Work Reveals Common Ground Across Massive Desert
The Sahara wasn’t always a desert. Around 9000 BCE it was a bucolic expanse where animals and lush vegetation thrived.