The Crusades - Thomas Asbridge

⭐ 8.5/10

(Originally written by Joseph)

I lost my 10,000 word Weview of this book, so I'm gonna just do a 5000 word point-form list of major takeaways.

1. This was the first time the Church sanctioned fighting. Now rather than it being simply justified, you could get into heaven by simply dying a miserable death in the near-East

2. This book told both the Christian and Muslim perspectives. Muslims perceived Christians as uncivilized savages. Interesting... (they were right)

3. This booked helped shape my knowledge of Medieval Muslims where it was either missing or wrong. One episode that stood out to me was that after Christians slaughtered every Muslim while taking Jerusalem, Saladin let them take their things and go when he took it back

4. Richard the Lionheart is an incredibly hard name. And yes he was a certified Chad. And boy was he evil.

5. The end of the Christian side was so incredibly dark. The start never had any justification, but in the end it was clear there was never any noble, religious purpose as they were killing other Christians and selling salvation to pay for armies, only to get absolutely slaughtered

6. I shouldn't pretend that the Muslims were innocent in this conflict. Lots of diabolical things, especially towards the end.

7. Is that Genghis Khan's music?? Crazy how after hundreds of years, with countless leaders and hundreds of thousands of soldiers, none of this mattered because some horsey-boys with no interest in religion came and swept through the whole world with no knowledge that people even wanted Jerusalem. After all this time defending this city to the death, both sides fled the city before the Mongols even arrived because they were so terrifying.

So yeah, obviously a great book if you have interest in this topic. Maybe too comprehensive of a history, but really detailed. Now get me that heart-of-darkness style movie adaptation!!