Sunday, January 31, 2010

The Crusades -- Islamic Perspectives, by Carole Hillenbrand

I found this review of The Crusades -- Islamic Perspectives in one of the backlogs of the Al-Ahram Weekly, Egypt's most widely circulated newspaper. The reviewer, Denys Johnson-Davies, enjoyed Hillenbrand's writing style and was impressed with her seventeen page bibliography. Some of the interesting parts of the book include, Muslim poems describing the carnage of the fall of Jerusalem, the Muslim's adaptions to the crusader tactics of siege warfare, and the Italian merchants who supplied wood to both the crusaders and Saladin's men during the Third Crusade. Overall, the book seems interesting and contains an especially intriguing chapter about the short and long term effects of the Crusades on the Muslim world. Based on this review i would suggest this book to anyone interested on the Muslim perspective of the Crusades.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/472/bk2_472.htm

1 comment:

  1. Hillenbrand's book is a genuine classic, well worth the read. The website you found looks interesting, too, and worth investigating for its own sake.

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