[lbo-talk] The Crusades

[Chris Doss]

Thanks Dwayne! That's just what I'm looking for. Few things annoy me more than the "Opposite George" school if history (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjXUgxR4Z10 ) whereby you think you are being very insightful by taking the dominant interpretation of a historical event and turning it around. "Aha! I am going to write a reinterpretation of American history in which, instead of the Founding Fathers being great liberal democrats, they are THE OPPOSITE! I'm brilliant!" 

--- On Sat, 11/1/08, Dwayne Monroe <dwayne.monroe at gmail.com> wrote:


> From: Dwayne Monroe <dwayne.monroe at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] The Crusades
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Saturday, November 1, 2008, 10:44 AM
> Chris asked:
> 
> I was wondering if anybody could recommend a good
> discussion of the
> Crusades that doesn't fall into either of the tedious
> "heroic
> Europeans vs. evil Muslims" or "evil European
> zealots vs. the
> enlightened Muslim world" tropes? Thanks!
> 
> .....
> 
> 
> 
> I suggest:
> 
> The Crusades: A History, by Jonathan Riley-Smith.
> 
> 
> <http://www.amazon.com/Crusades-History-Jonathan-Riley-Smith/dp/0826472702/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225549944&sr=8-1>
> 
> 
> Riley-Smith details the political, ideological and
> religious
> motivations of the architects and their foot soldiers, on
> all sides.
> He also provides comparisons with other religiously
> inspired wars,
> placing the crusades within a larger context (that is, not
> as a
> singular example of European evil, but an instance of the
> kind of
> socio-political conflict human societies have gotten
> tangled in for a
> long time).
> 
> 
> It's a dry book at times (okay, a lot of the time) but
> given the
> sentiments its subject usually inspires, this detachement
> is a welcome
> innovation.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> .d.
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