Dix questions sur les croisades

by William Blanc, Christophe Naudin, Florian Besson

160 pages

Published April 11, 2025

Reviews

[Axel Koch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a huge fan of little fact books like this because of my lifelong passion to know the bare minimum about as much as possible - I know some would disagree, but I definitely wouldn't have had the energy or time to read an 800-page tome on the Crusades, so this was ideal. The negative rating is due to the somewhat disguised universalist perspective typical of French intellectuals, which preaches secularism and the Enlightenment while being blind to the privileges accorded to themselves as White Europeans. The chapter on jihad, while I was glad to see it included, was particularly disappointing in that regard, failing as it does to make the obvious connection that those young Muslims that left Europe in the 2010s to fight the infidels on behalf of the Islamic State would have acted upon exactly the same motivations of religious indoctrination and a lack of life perspective in their country of origin as the common participants in the Crusades almost a millennium ago.

[Tom Bellenguez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Convient aux experts comme aux néophytes et on en sort un peu plus instruit sur un mot dont le sens est presque toujours galvaudé.

(Oui c’est la même critique que pour le livre sur les Jacobins mais c’est le même ressenti)