by Thomas Asbridge
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Product Description
In The First Crusade, Thomas Asbridge offers a gripping account of a titanic three-year adventure filled with miraculous victories, greedy princes, and barbarity on a vast scale. Beginning with the electrifying speech delivered by Pope Urban II on the last Tuesday of November in the year 1095, readers will follow the more than 100,000 men who took up the call from their mobilization in Europe (where great waves of anti-Semitism resulted in the deaths of thousands of Jews), to their arrival in Constanstinople, an exotic, opulent city--ten times the size of any city in Europe--that bedazzled the Europeans. Featured in vivid detail are the siege of Nicaea and the pivotal battle for Antioch, the single most important military engagement of the entire expedition, where the crusaders, in desparate straits, routed a larger and better equipped Muslim army. Through all this, the crusaders were driven on by intense religious devotion, convinced that their struggle would earn them the reward of eternal paradise in Heaven. But when a hardened core finally reached Jerusalem in 1099 they unleahsed an unholy wave of brutality, slaughtering thousands of Muslims--men, women, and children--all in the name of Christianity.
The First Crusade marked a watershed in relations between Islam and the West, a conflict that set these two world religions on a course toward deep-seated animosity and enduring enmity. The chilling reverberations of this earth-shattering clash still echo in the world today.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
The First Crusade: a review, 2008-06-07
Although I have yet to finish the book, I have been satisfied with what I have read and find it enjoyable enough to write my review. The book is an easy read, considering the subject matter. The only critisism that I have is that the footnotes could be fleshed out a little more. I'd be more comfortable accepting some of the assertions regarding motive and intent of the Crusaders if they were better sourced. However, on balance, I find the book to be informative and entertaining. I would reccomend this book to anyone interested in investigating the subject matter.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Good research, flat writing, 2008-04-30
Pedestrian general history of the First Crusade, from 1095-1098. Ashbridge is a better researcher than a writer, as the account appears factual but flat.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 best general history written on first crusade, 2008-04-24
The First Crusade written by medieval historian Thomas Asbridge is simply the finest general history of the campaign yet written. His use of contemporary sources, battlefield prose, and political and religious intrigues are fantastic. There is little if anything left out of this volume. He truly brings the first crusade to life. My fervent wish is that Asbridge with his emphasis on the military and human stories involved here becomes the next individual tasked with writing a full crusade history as a whole. This work is absolutely marvelous. Kudos to Mr Asbridge for this wonderful and hopefully introductory volume!
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
 unbalanced and overwrought, 2008-03-05
Asbridge pretty much ignores the history of Islamic aggression in the eastern Mediterranean that led up to the 1st Crusade. The prophet himself led forays into Syria in the 6th century. And Islamists overran a lot of previously Christian land before any crusading in response. How can you present "The Roots of Conflict Between Christianity and Islam" while ignoring hundreds of years of Islamic aggression prior to the first major counter measure?
My other major objection is turgid prose, for example from P.22
The sheer malleability of history - stretched and distorted by the imprecisions of memory and twisted through wilful manipulation and forgery - meant that the 'past' that informed and enabled Urban's sanctification of violence was actually a shifting, tangle web of reality and imagination.
I would prefer some evidence for this view rather than a wordy and overwrought assertion like this.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
An enjoyable narrative, from a European slant, 2008-02-17
The First Crusade is an enjoyable read. It starts a little slow, but once the Crusaders reach Constantinople, things get really interesting. It has lots of drama and action. I think the author is fairly un-biased, though the book is definitely from the European perspective. Many reviewers took exception with this book based on their OWN biases. Some Islamic readers felt that Asbridge tried to justify atrocities by the Crusaders, but I felt rather that he was trying to explain their motivations and beliefs, not putting forth his own. Indeed, if he was trying to make the Crusaders look better, he would have left out entire events as other writers have done. A note to the Christian crowd: this is a secular text. Asbridge does not attribute to God any of the 'miraculous' events or victories of the Crusaders. He does write that specific events were viewed as divine intervention or miracles to the Crusaders, but makes no judgements as to whether this is perception or reality. This is as it should be in a historical text. Christians have already written much mythology about the Crusades; this is an attempt to disseminate some facts. If you really want to learn about the Crusades, you should follow this up with a book from the Islamic perspective. Only by the synthesis of several sources can a true understanding of these history-shaping events be reached. A highly recommended read.
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