Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse

by Jay Rubenstein

At Moson, the river Danube ran red with blood. At Antioch, the Crusaders -- their saddles freshly decorated with sawed-off heads -- indiscriminately clogged the streets with the bodies of eastern Christians and Turks. At Ma'arra, they cooked children on spits and ate them. By the time the Crusaders reached Jerusalem, their quest -- and their violence -- had become distinctly blood literally ran shin-deep through the streets as the Crusaders overran the sacred city.

Beginning in 1095 and culminating four bloody years later, the First Crusade represented a new kind of holy, unrestrained, and apocalyptic. In Armies of Heaven , medieval historian Jay Rubenstein tells the story of this cataclysmic event through the eyes of those who witnessed it, emphasizing the fundamental role that apocalyptic thought played in motivating the Crusaders. A thrilling work of military and religious history, Armies of Heaven will revolutionize our understanding of the Crusades.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion, Medieval History, Christianity, Medieval, Islam

424 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 2011

Reviews

[Walter Mendoza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jay Rubenstein's Armies of heaven is an well written book about the first crusade; and historical aspects of the events of the crusades. The author tell us many and interesting details.

The crusades were some of the most violent wars ever fought and Rubenstein starts with a short summary like events lead to the first crusade. The book is based on primary sources; Rubenstein described and shared a marvelous narrative about individuals and personalities involved to the events and his consequences. In conclusion is an brillant work, I definitely recommend this book.

[Caleb · Rating 1 out of 5]

I went into this book excited by the prospect of reading a book about an era of history that just sounds interesting. I've seen it depicted in various places over the years, seen shows about it on television, and just in general had really high hopes when I found this book and selected it above another book on the same subject because this title had better reviews and seemed to promise new insight that sounded interesting in principle. Well, it disappointed all around.

I'll admit that I'm writing this about 100 pages shy of the end, but I know the jist of the first crusade and wanted some deeper information on the subject that this book just didn't deliver on. There are a lot of issues that become very apparent as I make my way through it. The writing style is strange with lots of random assumptions and inserted stories that turn out to be discredited portions of chronicles when you finish reading that segment, the organization is not great with some random jumping around filling in bits of the story while taking you totally out of the flow of it, and probably most damning of all, the new insights turn out to be taking the same historical ideas that have been around for ages and making bold claims that they are all this or that apocalypse, elevating horrific moments of the crusade to a level that doesn't deserve the use of the word (or more likely diminishing it's proper use elsewhere) since, as he states several times throughout the book, a lot of what he describes in both numbers and details are likely a large exaggeration.

I think the bit about including discredited history is the one that bugs me the most. He doesn't forewarn you so you read something, and then find out it's not true. Sometimes it's obvious because it's so far fetched that it can't be real, but sometimes it'll be an aproximation of what one historical account had to say that might sound plausible, but it's not. Or maybe it is, but he has his own idea about it, and he'll say so, whether he can support it or not.

I don't know. This was interesting at first, but as it wore on it just got infuriating to read. It reads like a strange fairy tale sometimes, like a dense textbook others and it's just not a great telling of the history as far as I can tell. Maybe if I'd read another book on the subject before this one I'd feel better informed to understand why he thinks he has a new stance on the first crusade, why he organizes the book the way he does and why he chooses to include information that turns out to not be true (it's not interesting enough to justify it's being there half the time, sorry). I wanted something more from this book, and now I just feel put off on reading about the subject ever again, and that probably angers me more than anything right now.

[Shaun · Rating 3 out of 5]

Made it halfway and then abandoned.

The organization of this book didn't work for me. Obviously this is a complex topic, and hard to write/read about...not to mention everyone has the same name and there is a lot of jumping back and forth. I think I need a book which focuses more on one or two overriding themes and a better organization...at least a glossary of names and a condensed and collective timeline to help me keep track. I can see how an informed academic in this area of study would get more from this book.

Bottom line: mainly a personal problem.

It wasn't a complete waste of time, though. I feel I garnered something from the first half, just came to the conclusion that it was not the best book for me at the time. I may visit it again in the future.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised to see so many reviewers complaining that this book was dense- I thought it was almost too light. Rubenstein ends up doing a very nice job balancing scholarly respectability (occasional thematic chapters, massive footnotes in which he buries scholarly controversies) with attention grabbing detail (gore, religious zealotry, political shenanigans). His writing is, I think, almost too simple- I often had to go back and read something, not because it was difficult, but because he lulled me into thinking the whole thing would be grade-school simple and then I suddenly realized I'd just skimmed over whole paragraphs looking for the meat. But really it's mostly meat. Also, very well chosen illustrations and beautiful color reproductions.

If you junk the requisite "the crusades are relevant to today because of Samuel Huntingdon" garbage, even the conclusion is interesting- Rubenstein suggests that the first crusade gave some impetus to the 'birth of the individual,' the birth of nationalism and a few other important components of the high middle ages and early modern world.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I go back and forth on this one, but overall I like it. He takes a half narrative approach which is mostly from his perception of the attitudes of the Crusaders. This works well often, and his occasional asides offer insights into certain aspect of the First Crusade which I have not seen covered elsewhere, such as his take on the story of the 'raped nun' at Nicaea who was 'saved' by the Crusaders but then ran back to her husband/rapist(?) at the first chance she got, and went out of her way and risked a lot in doing so. It would have been natural for the Latin chroniclers of the time to be baffled by this, but when we consider that many people in the west were raised in monasteries and not given the choice to become a monk or nun, and it not being unheard of by any means for Turks to treat certain of their prisoners well (such as, pretty women), it seems fairly plausible that she was genuinely in love with the man who had captured her and saw a better life there for herself than with the French warriors who found her, than that she was actually a tortured victim of Stockholm Syndrome.

Sometimes the approach goes a bit far as well, but I think it hits more than it misses.

[Joshua Horn · Rating 2 out of 5]

An accessible and interesting history of the First Crusade. Rubenstein seems to be coming from the modern "memory" camp of history. He is studying what people believed was happening more than trying to discover what actually did. While this can be useful, I think he overdoes it. At times he blurs the lines of myth and actual events, thus loosing some ability to critique the beliefs of the crusaders. He also gets a good bit of theology wrong, though not nearly as bad as some other historians.

[Kaylee Woolman · Rating 2 out of 5]

not to be a complete dork loser but this was the most interesting perspective of the crusades i have read so far. i wouldn’t say rubenstein fully convinced me on his view of the crusades as an apocalyptic event but his way of narrating makes it easy to understand his argument and why some might support it

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging, thought-provoking and illuminating history of the First Crusade.

Rubenstein focuses on the apocalyptic thinking of the crusaders, as well as how their vision differed among themselves, and how they understood the events of the crusade, and he emphasizes the role of Peter the Hermit. He ably describes how the Byzantine emperor used bribes and persuasion to shoo the crusader armies away from his lands and into combat with his enemies. The crusaders who answered Urban’s call, of course, proved more successful. The narrative is well-organized and very accessible, and Rubenstein easily outlines the history of the crusade and context and reasoning behind it.

Rubenstein plays down Pope Urban II as the crusade’s originator, but this part isn’t always convincing, since the crusaders themselves appealed to him during their fortunes and misfortunes. Also, Rubenstein seems to emphasize the violence and apparently insane things the crusaders did; there is little on the pragmatism of their diplomacy or conquests. Rubenstein also seems to have interpreted all of the source material in light of his own apocalypse argument. He frames the anti-Semitic violence in the Rhineland as part of the call to crusade, but provides no real evidence. At one point he writes that medieval armies did not bring food with them (huh?) He also gets the chronology of the Nicae siege wrong, and does not explain how the crusaders built their siege engines.

Still, an insightful, well-written work overall.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is one that I can picture being made into a program on the History Channel, narrated by Edward Herrmann perhaps. And I mean that in a good way. It's filled with great details and insights into the minds of major players in the First Crusade. Author Jay Rubenstein has obviously done his research, pulling perspectives from a variety of sources to piece together what happened during this monumental effort to regain Jerusalem.

The concept of Holy War has always seemed an oxymoron to me, and it still is. The things done in the name of peace and religion are astonishing—the greed, violence, corruption, sadism, and hypocrisy that took place during this journey are astonishing. Battle is one thing, but plundering cities, razing them to the ground, making slaves of some and meals of others (even when without the excuse of starvation prompting cannibalism), is another.

And perhaps the greatest lesson is one that hasn't been learned, as it seems thought hasn't moved all that far in a thousand years, as Rubenstein says, “...it is difficult to ignore the resonances between the eleventh-century story I have told and our own time: a Western army attacking a little-understood Eastern culture, earnestly believing itself to be a liberator of the cities it conquered...”

Armies of Heaven sheds light on the past and the present, and is accessible to the layperson as well as the academic. However, it can also be dense material to get through, and it does take time and concentration to read, so it's not to be recommended as summer beach reading but definitely as a serious work of history.

[Fred Kohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most unusual history books I have read. The first endorsement on the back of my edition says, "Impressive storytelling ..." which is totally accurate. The historical facts are present, of course, but they are weaved together in a way intended to get the reader inside the heads of the crusaders rather than standing dispassionately outside the history as an observer. This can be a bit weird, as sometimes you wonder whether the author really wants you to believe the spirits of dead saints fought at Antioch (!?!). But in the end, you wind up with a better appreciation for the crusaders. In the concluding chapter, The Never-Ending Apocalypse, Rubenstein reveals his chops as a master historian:

[I]t is difficult to ignore the resonances between the eleventh-century story I have told and our own time: a Western army attacking a little-understood Eastern culture, earnestly believing itself to be a liberator of the cities it conquered, trusting that God was on its side and that to die in battle was to attain a martyr's death, both anxious and hopeful that its exertions would remake the world and create a peace so profound that history itself might draw to a close (with Christianity or liberal democracies covering the globe), only to discover that the sudden liberation of Jerusalem had led not to a new world but to an endless and endlessly dangerous occupation of enemy territory.

[Rick Osborn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jay Rubenstein presents a detailed account of the First Crusade in a highly readable way. How he was able to document daily events from 1097 AD and maintain the chronology is amazing. For anyone who wants a good understanding of the motives and the events of the First Crusade I doubt there could be better work to read.

What could potentially be a laborious manuscript of dates and people and events comes to life as Jay adds a human touch to each of the main characters (and there are many of them).

This is not so much a history book as a diary of the long trek from France to Jerusalem.
Whenever the going was about to get boring with a siege lasting a little too long, Jay threw in something to jolt the reader, like the killing of a few hundred Jews in a practice pogrom, mass beheadings and even a dose of cannibalism.

[M.L. Forman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great telling of the first crusade and the people involved in it. This, unlike many history books, is easy to read and understand. It seems more like a novel than a lesson in history, but the things in this book actually did take place. A great read for anyone who wonders why would people willing, even enthusiastically go and fight a war of apocalypse.

[Jefferson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Convincing but Not Wholly Revelatory Apocalyptic Argument

The convincing thesis of Jay Rubenstein’s Armies of Heaven: The First Crusade and the Quest for Apocalypse (2011) is that the first crusade was driven by apocalyptic vision, that the participants believed the end of the world was nigh, if not already occurring, and that that way of thinking is useful to analyze historically, because many people today still believe in immanent apocalpyse and the religious-cultural conflict between east and west still continues.

In his book, Rubenstein recounts:

--the background of Jerusalem as a holy city for Christians;

--the rise of pilgrimage as a booming industry, at first at home in Europe and then abroad to the Holy Land when a land route through Hungary opened up;

--the 11th-century arrival of the Seljuk Turks in that area endangering Christian pilgrims;

--the inspiring of the first crusade by Pope Urban (and Peter the Hermit) in 1095 by appealing to Christian outrage at Turkish atrocities and to the desire to unite Eastern and Western Christian churches;

--the warming up for crusade abroad by massacring or force converting Jews at home first;

--the recruiting of various princes with various motives (including greed and ambition), like Bohemond, Tancred, Baldwin, Godfrey, Raymond, and Hugh;

their different routes and progresses towards Constantinople (some of them wanting to conquer that city first);

--the tricky diplomacy of Alexius the Byzantine Emperor vis-à-vis the distrustful and scornful crusader princes, paying them to not pillage his people and to return any territories or cities they’d capture from the Turks to Byzantine control;

--how the christians saw “Saracens” as inverted (evil) Christians;

--how the Crusaders started a new kind of brutal merciless holy war based on Old Testament “feats” of the Israelites in Deuteronomy and on apocalyptic passages in Revelations;

--how they laid seige to cities like Antioch (including catapulting decapitated Saracen heads into the cities and butchering, roasting, and eating Saracen defenders outside the walls);

--how they ginned up morale by “finding” and worshiping potent holy relics like the holy lance that pierced the savior’s side and a fragment of the true cross;

--how they fragmented, lost leaders and pilgrims and soldiers to death and desertion, but nonetheless succeeded in sacking Jerusalem, wading through “rivers of blood” and massacring instead of ransoming prisoners;

--how they finally decided who would rule the holy city;

-- and how the first crusade both unified western Christendom and divided it from the Eastern church and its people.

Throughout, Rubenstein is a capable, clear writer with a pleasingly acerbic wit, as in lines like these:

--“But caution was not a virtue of God’s army.”

--“…as Bohemond engaged in stealth diplomacy—or duplicity.”

--“The route they traced would be roughly equivalent to that later invention and pious fraud, the Stations of the Cross, or Via Dolorosa, which pilgrims of Jerusalem still follow.”

I didn’t care for the times when Rubenstein paraphrases the crusaders in contemporary English idiom, like “Robert chided him, telling him to lighten up, given all that he had accomplished.”

Audiobook reader Brian Holsopple is has a clear voice and a straightforward, no frills manner, not unlike Grover Garland.

Finally, I didn’t learn so much new from this book than I did from earlier ones covering the crusades (and this one is limited to the first crusade), and I got the feeling that Rubenstein is perhaps playing the apocalyptic vision chord of his book a little too often.

But readers wanting an introduction into the cursader world view and the start of the crusades should like Armies of Heaven.

[Mary Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rubenstein’s book pays careful attention to the potential perspectives of the crusaders and the religious and spiritual beliefs that may have shaped their worlds. His prioritization of the “natural” miracles such as the earthquakes and comets feels particularly apt, as he considers the way that these signs might have been read by the historical actors as they constructed narratives about their own lives as they lived them. The more contentious miracles such as the discovery of the allegedly holy Holy Lance are inseparably linked to the actions of men, unlike the natural phenomena. Because of this difference, the question one must ask of these natural occurrences is not whether they were fabricated but what they meant to the men who saw them. The natural phenomena position the crusaders not as authors of their own actions and stories, as they are in the case of the potentially fabricated miracles, but as readers taking in semiotic information from the world around them and assimilating it into their conceptions of themselves and their parts in the events at hand. Rubenstein’s pursuit of the apocalyptic theory demonstrates his awareness of these ideas and his willingness to explore the way that this semiotic information might have fit into that larger framework of knowledge with regard to interpreting the natural world through a Biblical lense. That said, Rubenstein’s support for this theory felt lacking.

It is difficult to know anything about the experience of readers, for unlike writers, for whom writing is both a process and a product, readers often do not leave formal traces of their actions, and as a result, understanding the way readers read, whether they read words or signs, is a tricky business. However, that does not excuse the borderline conjecture that Rubenstein engages in at times in order to support his theory that the crusaders read these natural phenomena as portents of the apocalypse. In discussing a lunar eclipse which gave off a red glow, he writes, “We can easily imagine the excited hum among the knights and clerics.” Discussing an earthquake that shook the crusading armies at Antioch, he writes, “An educated cleric like Raymond or Fulcher would have likely turned to the Bible, perhaps to the book of the Apocalypse where he would have read, or half-remembered, the description of the breaking of the sixth seal…” Rubenstein asks us to imagine, speculating about what they “would have likely” read, but he does not have any way of definitively saying what they did read.

Simply because Rubenstein sees the symbolic parallels between these events and passages in the Bible does not mean that those parallels were observed by the men in these narratives. What feels truly lacking from this theory is evidence of the language of the apocalypse used by the crusaders, as we only know how they read things insofar as we can see the reflection of those readings in their writing. Rubenstein repeatedly brings up the fact that these men had no word for “crusade” when they began their journey, and thus blames their struggle to establish a consistent ideology on that linguistic lack. However, the same cannot be said of the apocalypse. The crusaders were equipped with that language, and Rubenstein neither convincingly displays their use of it nor explains its absence.

[Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rubenstein is a fairly breezy read, and his writing is fantastic; he really brings out the inherent drama found in the First Crusade. His account is salacious and clever whilst maintaining its scholarly roots, though I sometimes found the way Rubenstein speculated as to individual motivations a little unfounded. It's a great book, and excellent when read paired against Riley-Smith. While I had more qualms with the text I definitely enjoyed reading it more.

That said, I don't think Rubenstein makes his case for the eschatological underpinnings of the First Crusade as well as he could. This isn't because his argument is bad in itself but for the lay reader his treatment of medieval apocalypticism feels a little shallow and hard to really understand on a first pass. After I read most of Dominion of God: Christendom and Apocalypse in the Middle Ages and revisited Armies of Heaven I didn't have the same issues, so again I think it's a problem with rhetoric rather than scholarship.

Still this book is just fun and does an excellent job of straddling the line between pop history and scholarly work.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is pretty good, it’s definitely a take limited to European apocalyptic ideology but it never claims to be more than that.

My one issue was to do with referencing and source translations. Quite often the direct source is not too clear; the note will apply to a whole paragraph containing quite a few quotes, with the note listening multiple provenances. Some of the translations decisions are also... interesting? At one point something is rendered as ‘even the count’s closest friends became so keyed up about the pilgrimage’. Again the source reference is for the whole paragraph and notes both Raymond of Aguilers and Ralph of Caen so I’m not sure where it comes from. Either way, I feel pretty safe saying neither early 12th century writers would have used a phrase I would even remotely connect to being ‘keyed up’! When using a translation that makes such odd and anachronistic choices, it’s always best to give the raw untranslated quote too, just to give the reader a fighting chance to pick up on the original vibe.

[Chris Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone attempting to get a handle on the first crusade, this is the go-to book. Mr. Rubenstein has woven together a history that covers the major ideologies, actions, movement across two continents, battles, anti-semitic pogroms, politics and diplomacy in a structured, clear presentation drawn from many different resources. As always, when dealing with the medieval period, there are limited sources, many contradictory, that must be analyzed, parsed, and given a value as to the actuality of the event described. He carefully lays out why he chose his particular view, yet allows the reader insight into the other possibilities as well. His main theme of the 'quest for Apocalypse', is made clear as well as connecting with millennialism and other strains of end-time thought, which led to mass slayings and blood running deep in the streets. It is a rewarding, thoughtful tour of a very unpleasant time in history.

[Randal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Educational, interesting. One approach I particularly liked was including a variety of points of view rather than having the author choose the "correct" one from several possibilities. I found this particularly useful in many places where all the original sources are deeply flawed (often written secondhand a decade or more after the event described, or coming from opposite sides of a given battle, where estimates of the troops involved might be off by 20x or even 50x between the sources).

Not the right book if you're looking for examples of Christian charity or mercy, but you probably gathered that from the publisher's blurb. Makes a good case for the apocalyptic nature of the Crusade. Would have liked to get a bit more about the effect of technology / levels of weaponry. Seemed like a fair bit of defenders dropping rocks on fully armored knights, although there was some discussion of the Franks' ability at close-range combat vs. various "Saracens'" long-range superiority.

[Thomas Wiltshire · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book serves as an excellent account of the Crusades by providing oversight of the many groups involved up until the fall and capture of Jerusalem. The writing style is very friendly for a part of history that is extremely convoluted and difficult to understand. Rubenstein is gifted at providing deep personalities to this historical figures and creating descriptive backgrounds. I’d highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the crusades and the people that carried them out.

[Darryn T · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent summation of events leading up to the capture of Jerusalem. The author brings out the character of key figures in these events. The narrative couches the military history in a deep sense of biblical apocalypse as those contemporaneous with events had done. The result is a captive mix of nonfiction and mysticism.

[Sandra Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent read

Excellent book. Easy to read and fascinating. Even someone with little knowledge of the first crusade (me) will get a lot out of it. Those with more knowledge will obtain a deeper perspective.

[TS Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

That rare book that captures the past perfectly, yet still feels contemporary.

[Bob Rice · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was always wanted to understand about the crusades. This book was very eye-opening.

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Its amazing how much information is available about an event that took place over 900 years ago, in what I always thought of as the Dark Ages. The author had multiple sources of information available to him - who would have thought it?

The other overarching impression was about the violence of the First Crusade. Obviously this was a war, and a holy one at that, so violence is a given. But I really had no idea that the crusaders would take over a city and kill every man, woman and child in it - even those who were orginally granted mercy to obtain some ransom. The victims were not only killed, but beheaded, ripped apart, disembowled and on not-so-rare-ocasions they were eaten.

The premise of the book is that the crusaders believed they were living out biblical prophecy in bringing about the apocolypse as foretold in the final book of the New Testament (Revelations). He made a good case for that, in fact the crusaders and their non-warring contemporaries acutally believed they were living in the end times for decades after the fall of Jerusalem, convinced that the last days were begun as a result of their victory.

This was interesting in a dry way. And it's strange how many Raymonds and Peters and repititious names there were (so we had to have many Peter of Something which I found tedious and hard to keep them apart). The author ends by drawing parallels to todays war on terror but instead of drawing the obvious similarities to todays Islamists (very violent, belief in rewards of martyrdom and desire to bring about end-times) - the author actually draws the parallel to the WEST and our approach to this situation. Our actions are the result of prejudices formed in those early crusade days. I reject this as being outright silly.

[Dennis Robbins · Rating 5 out of 5]

“God wills it!” This is not why I read the book. The followers of Pope Urban II
yelled this on their religious mission to take back the Holy Sepulcher from the
Seljuk Turks in the 11th Century, commonly called the First Crusade. Terry Jones
praised the book and since I’ve learned most of what I know about the Middle Ages
from Monty Python and the Holy Grail that was a good enough of a
recommendation for me.

This thoroughly interesting book about the First Crusade describes the original
Holy War; there were many crusades but only eight received numbers from
historians. The author views this story through the filter of Christian
Apocalypticism and the belief that conquering the Saracens (Moslems) and
occupying Jerusalem would trigger Armageddon or be an actual fulfillment of New
Testament “last days&---the final defeat of Satan. Religious signs prophesied the end
was neigh: meteor showers, blood moons, comets, mysterious tattoos appearing on
the faithful and clouds in the shape of horsemen battling in the sky. Urban II urged
believers to march to Jerusalem and along the way they ransacked Europe and
slaughtered Jews. The sieges of Antioch, Ma’arra and Jerusalem came with
unspeakable atrocities including cannibalism. Beheading became a fashion.
Crusaders were compelled by the sermons of the charismatic personality called
Peter the Hermit. There was another Peter (Bartholomew) who found the Holy Lance
of Antioch that the Roman solider Longinus used to spear our lord. Normans and
Franks believe they lived in the “end-times” and behaved accordingly.

We are still dealing with aftermath of this Holy War, which makes the book a
worthwhile read.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this book. I only had a cursory knowledge of the crusade, and Mr. Rubnestein made the journey from Southern France to Jerusalem very enjoyable! I never realized how much Christian on Christian violence was inflicted along the way. And the first crusade shaped the course of European history, and still affects us to this day. If you enjoy reading European or religious history, than you will enjoy this book.

[Darla Stokes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just fascinating. A little unwieldy to read, what with flipping back and forth to the footnotes. This seems more focused on the human aspect, the motivations and emotions of those involved, which made it much more interesting than the more, say, battle-centric type of account.

I also appreciated all those footnotes, which explained how and why different historians disagreed on certain details.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rubinstein's prologue prepares us for a story of an era of which the Crusade was one part. The Amazon description uses inflammatory language that Rubenstein actually cautions against giving full credence. In glancing back over the work, I have a renewed understanding of why some of it was rather disturbing from a "blood and guts" standpoint. But clearly valuable material for understanding that phase of history.

[Oscar · Rating 3 out of 5]

The review inside the book cover suggests casual reader would like this. My thoughts are that there is way too much detail of people, places, and things for the casual reader. I basically skimmed through this and picked out sections to read. But if you are a serious student of this time and event, its incredibly referenced, and probably a 5.

[John Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very readable book on a subject that generally makes people bored. Jay Rubenstein does a first rate job in making the subject interesting and topical. I'd like to see a follow up on the Second Crusade.