Pretty fascinating account of the Crusades. I hadn't read anything about the Crusades since I took Western Civ in high school, so this was mostly fresh information for me and I found it very interesting. The final chapter is eminently skippable, however--Phillips tries to tie contemporary figures such as Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden to the medieval Crusades, and it doesn't really work. (And the chapter also just feels like it is from an entirely different book.) Still well worth reading. ( )

Pretty fascinating account of the Crusades. I hadn't read anything about the Crusades since I took Western Civ in high school, so this was mostly fresh information for me and I found it very interesting. The final chapter is eminently skippable, however--Phillips tries to tie contemporary figures such as Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden to the medieval Crusades, and it doesn't really work. (And the chapter also just feels like it is from an entirely different book.) Still well worth reading. ( )

Unlike a lot of academic works this is not dry and tedious for the most part, though sometimes the author does decide to spend many pages giving detailed accounts of sieges.

On the simplest level the book is not just an account of an endless round of battles, it introduces key figures, explores their lives and careers, and examines how and why they contributed to the crusades. Taken as a whole, it is an engaging and readable human narrative of the entire crusading period from the Late Eleventh to the Sixteenth Centuries.

On a personal level, I found the some of the information very surprising. Admittedly I had a very limited knowledge of the Crusades as a whole, but I found that this book caused me to re-examine by opinion of the era.

It is difficult to maintain objectivity when recounting such a controversial period, yet Phillips largely manages to do so. In doing so he reveals many facts and incidents that do not seem to make it into television documentaries, which can be rather one-sided.

Phillips demonstrates, for instance, there were many atrocities committed on both sides. The sack of Jerusalem in 1099 by the Crusaders, resulting in the massacre of thousands of Muslims and Jews is well known. The sacking of Acre in 1291 by Muslim forces in which thousands of Christian innocents including Monks and Nuns were slaughtered is not so widely publicised, yet was no less devastating.

It is also shown that Muslims were as much driven by religious fervour and fanaticism, and sometimes simple blind hatred as the Crusaders, and also that the idea of offensive Holy War pre-existed the Crusades. Perhaps most surprising is the revelation that, contrary to his depiction Saladin was not a peacemaker, but a warlord who fought against other Muslims as well as Christians, but whose main commitment was to the cause of driving the latter out of the Holy Land . His own Muslim biographers presented him as the warrior of God and defender of Islam , and it is only, apparently modern Westerners who have turned him into the lover of peace.

On the downside 'Holy Warriors' sometimes lacks depth, for example in places the author states that battles were lost or offensives failed but does not always give adequate explanation for the reasons behind such failures.

Still an excellent introduction and a great starting point for further study. ( )

A much maligned period of church history has a great light shone upon it in this book by Jonathan Phillips. Although there is much to decry from the time period of the crusades, it seems like most know no more about it than, "it was bad"

Phillips is extremely detailed in his account of the crusades of medival Christendom, and goes to great lengths to paint an honest picture of Christian and Muslim. Citing sources from both sides of the conflict gives a great picture of the wars, what people really thought of each other, and what really drove the crusades.

There was no shortage of ulterior motives on behalf of both parties, and details are given into the behind the scenes working of the Catholic church and Islam. Both good and bad are shown for all they are worth, and no punches are pulled.

What I most appreciated about this book was the style that Phillips wrote in. The book reads like a narrative, from someone who was there. While citing and quoting various sources, it is not merely a list of dates and names. It helps move what might be a tedious book into an engaging and moving description of life.

Excellent, very readable birds-eye view of the Crusades. Phillips falls down a bit when he tries to pull it all together and talk about the use of the word "crusade" in times since the actual Crusades...he's trying for a kinda lofty conclusion, and he doesn't quite make it. But the main point is to give a general sense of what happened, and there he succeeds admirably.

I'm not trying to become a big expert on the Crusades or anything; I just want the broad strokes. I think of it like this: I'd like to know enough about the Crusades to nail a a hypothetical Crusades category on Jeopardy. I've achieved that: what are Jerusalem, the Knights Templar, Richard the Lionheart, Constantinople, and Saladin. Gimme my money. ( )