The Crusades: A History From Beginning to End by Henry Freeman

The Crusades: A History From Beginning to End Reviews

• 
  Cheryl

  This book was ok, but not quite as good as the other history books in the series. The problem I have with it is that the author seems very anti Muslim/Islam and very pro Christianity, it makes me wonder how accurate the rest of the book will be when he starts off so dogmatic in his own beliefs. He compares then (the Crusades) to now with ISIS and clearly wants one last crusade to fight Isis as it is in our present day. I did not like the introduction, it seemed very one sided and opinionated.
  
  Ok so moving on, for the most part it seems like a good overview and I did learn much from it, although never quite shaking the question of how much was actual fact. The biggest question I had was were the crusades to reclaim the holy land or to defend the current Christian lands as they were then?
  
  I think the dates and most of the history of this book are accurate but don’t let yourself get led by his own thoughts.
  
  I feel disappointed by this book, I have really enjoyed so many of these books. Yes it was helpful and I do recommend it as a great starting point to anyone who wants to know just a bit about the Crusades without getting bogged down in heavy tomes. Just keep an open mind and be objective in your reading and thoughts.
  
  I shall give this a 3*/5 because it did do what I wanted, it helped me understand a little about this time and the crusades, it just wasn’t written as well as it could have been.
  
• 
  Udit Nair

  Again hourly history does a great job in summarising the sequence of events. Ofcourse such religious fanatic phases are best to be forgotten. But yet they convey the fault lines present in society and makes us cautious about it. Whatsoever might be the motivation, what cannot be debated is that 1.7 million ordinary people, both Christians and Muslim, died as a result of crusades (officially), and that loss of life cannot be considered chivalric in the slightest.
• 
  Stephanie (Bookfever)

  The Crusades is one of those topics that I like to read about, though I haven't read about it a whole lot. And I liked this book for sure, though it's not a favorite of mine of recently read historical nonfictions.
  
  I learned quite a bit about the crusades, which is always nice. The writing was also pretty great and it was a fast read.
  
  I do have to admit that the tone of the writing felt pretty opinionated. I'm not sure if it's just me who felt that way or if it's just the way it was written.
  
  However, I really did think this was a interesting read and would definitely recommend it to people who want to read more about the crusades.
• 
  Noreen

  History without excessive brain strain. A short read, with interesting conclusions about the effects of the Crusades on the Europe, Britain, the collapse of the Byzantine empire. The collapse of the Byzantine empire completed the split between two Christian schools of thought. Islam has a split between Shia and Sunni. Buddhism has a split between Mahayana and Hinayama.
• 
  RavenPoeACup

  Reads like a high school students attempt at research paper.
• 
  Murray

  the crusades and the jihads
  
  A focused and fairly detailed overview of the nine Crusades and the Muslim jihads that followed which brought Muslim armies storming into Europe.
  
  This essay doesn’t take the easy route of claiming only Crusaders committed atrocities but takes note of slaughters perpetrated by Muslim forces too.
  
  Unfortunately the author makes no mention of Muslim crusades or jihads which resulted in the conquest of Spain in 711, a conquest that lasted 700 years, which I think partially contributed to the regrettable Crusade fervor that swept Europe.
  
  A painful saga that included a lot of Christian infighting and a lot of Muslim infighting too.
  
  It’s estimated that over 1.7 million died in the ongoing warfare that lasted hundreds of years.
  
  Saladin was defeated twice by Richard the Lionhearted. He retained Jerusalem but sought a peace treaty with Richard that lasted until his death.
  
  Warfare between various religions has not yet left us. The folly of such conflict being engaged in by people claiming to serve and worship a God of love and peace, whatever else they claim God to be, seems to be lost on those who initiate and perpetuate such warfare.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Thom Swennes

  “Whoever devotedly undertakes and performs this most holy journey … shall have the enjoyment of eternal reward from the repayer of all men.” -Pope Eugenius III-
  I can’t help but see the similarities between this statement and the promise given to all of the jihad terrorists that appear in western newspapers and strike fear in the hearts of millions.
  
  I have always been both fascinated and confused with the phenomena known collectively as the Crusades. What would motivate people from all walks of life to leave their homes and loved ones to fight for an area of arid ground thousands of miles away? What did they hope to accomplish? Once successful, if indeed this unorganized southeastern trek proved triumphant, what would they have to sacrifice to keep their distant gains? The Crusades can be separated into seven distinct pilgrimages, spread over two centuries. Only the first and fourth migration could be considered a success for the Christian forces but these weren’t slated to last for long, as they were surrounded by hostile Islamite tribes.
  Even today, almost a millennium after the First Crusade of 1096, Jerusalem, though in the heart of the Jewish State of Israel, remains a contested city. Muslims, Jews, and Christians still consider it the core of their religion and only a fragile peace prevails. Think of the countless number of lives, the insurmountable suffering, and the enormous monetary cost this pearl of a city has cost over the centuries.
  It would be impossible to describe this monumental movement on a personal base. This book provides the reader with a minimum amount of information in its extremely limited space. This leaves many more questions than it provides answers for. It does serve as an inspiration and motivation for a further in-depth study. The occasional typographical error is more of a nuisance than a hindrance.
  
• 
  Madelon

  Dispute over Jerusalem is a war for the ages, a war that has literally been ongoing for millennia. The Crusades (there were nine plus the Children's Crusade) represent 208 years of war between Christians and Muslims for the right to rule the Kingdom of Jerusalem as a Christian or Muslim state.
  
  Although this account is well written, for me, it is too much like history as it is taught in school… specific dates, the names of long-dead kings, and battles that resulted in too much death and destruction. Although the Knights Hospitaller are mentioned more than once, the Knights Templar are noted but once in connection with the Second Crusade. Two hundred members of these Knight orders were executed at the end of this unsuccessful attempt. I have had a certain fascination with the Templars whose mythos is a blend of history and fiction. In addition to the lack of importance of these warrior knights during this time period, it is also noteworthy that the Jewish population plays a minor role during the conflict. It is noted Jews fought alongside Muslims during the First Crusade.
  
  To my way of thinking, religious war is one of dogma where each fighter believes himself or herself to be right and nothing can change that belief. It is a no win situation. The Crusades were a bloody failure that cost 1.7 million people their lives. They died in battle as well as from starvation and dehydration. Some Crusaders died because their leaders did not understand the hydrogeography of the Nile.
  
  The First Crusade was undertaken in 1096. It is now 2019, and war in the Middle East continues. The names of combatants and locations have changed but the underlying premise of a holy war remains.
• 
  Mandy Peterson

  This book is biased and makes comparisons regarding today's terrorists and how Christians during the crusades aren't like these terrorists, which kind of gives a distorted view of the Crusades and History of Roman Catholicism. He left out the Crusade against the Cathars and focused on the crusades against the Muslims. Author states that Christians were justified to crusade against Muslims because Muslims were forcing people to convert through threat of violence. Ummm Christians did that too. A lot!
• 
  Robert Rogers

  Interesting brief summary of the Crusades. He gives the basic facts, so it is useful to get the main story. However, Freeman is openly biased in favor of the Crusaders, and downplays their cruelty and draws parallels to ISIS.
  The author's writing is also atrocious. The book often reads like a speech delivered orally, complete with slang like "beat the crap" and incomplete sentences.
  The book was free, so I got my money's worth out of it.
• 
  Joshua

  Reads like a C- student's attempt at a 9th grade history class term paper.
  
  The length is massively inadequate to address the subject and it throws out a few easily discovered facts about the crusades before devolving into a screed against Islam. You're better off reading wikipedia than this trush. At least wikipedia has standards.
• 
  Sam

  This reads like the first draft of a bad long winded university dissertation. It has spelling and grammatical errors throughout. It has the wrong dates for events which are easily confirmed by multiple first and second hand sources. It wrongly names a King in the same paragraph it gets it right. It is biased towards Christendom to put it mildly and frankly Islamophobic from start to finish.
• 
  Mohamed Gharib

  A total waste of time, I can't describe this as a historical book at all.
  Antimuslim ,full of fairy tales, and Exaggerated information
  I think the author got his information form movies and novels.
  some of the brilliant information in the book
  Total 3rd crusade power 600,000 men ( actually not more than 75,000)
  there was a good relation between Richard the Lion heart and Saladin !!
  No mention to Battle of Hattian or Arsuf or any battle form the most important Crusade !!
  
  But The crusaders entered Jerusalem peacefully ? from where did you come with this information? the brutalities and murders that happen in the city is a historical fact. you want to make the crusaders looking good that I could understand but to deny or not to mention facts to prove your point of view that is lie.
  
  Also Claiming that Egypt Syria and Lebanon was Christian countries before the Muslim conquering them, yes they were Christian ( actually after wiping out the old pagan religions with blood and fire). but anyway still there are Christian their till now living proud and living in peace . may be they had some discriminations form some Muslim rulers during the course of history but they remains still. the same as the Christians did to Muslims in other parts in the world (Spain for example while but of course in a smaller scale). at the time of the crusades those lands were Muslim lands and the Christians were the invaders you can't change that.
  also in a matter of fact that there was a huge gap between eastern and western Christians in the core of their believes and the Crusades didn't help them but was a reason to increase the hate between Muslims and Christians and didn't make the relations between eastern and western Christians any better.
• 
  Eugene Kernes

  As Islamic armies were threat to the Western world, Pope Urban II initiated the first Crusade. A Crusade that was meant to defend besieged Christian peoples in the East. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a collection of captured cities, creating a Crusader Kingdom. Later Crusades were launched to retake lost lands in previous Crusades. This book showcases a few events from a majority of the Crusades, which include the rivalry and respect between Richard the Lionheart and Saladin. In another Crusade, in a twist of events, the Crusaders ended up sacking the Byzantines which they were meant to protect. A key lesson in this book is that negotiating diplomatically had better results than warfare.
  
  There is a huge problem with this book which is what the book leaves out. Not because it is a short book which lacks events and proofs, but the perception that Freeman continues to instill in the reader. A perception that the Islamic Empires were ruthless, cruel, and dishonorable, without any redeeming qualities. Without mentioning anything about cruelties and dishonorable behaviors of the Christian world. In an effort to provide a more nuanced view, unlike the Christian world of persecution, the Islamic world facilitated tolerance between different religions and made many intellectual breakthroughs which help precipitate the enlightenment in the West. What is worse is that the antagonistic view held by the author throughout the book, involves relations in the early 21st century. There were a few times that the author claimed that historians could not deny a fact, but historians would disagree and provide a way more nuanced claim.
• 
  W. Derek Atkins

  A Poorly-Researched, Poorly-Written Book
  
  I bought this book because I wanted to read a brief history of the Crusades as part of my research for a class I will be teaching, but I found this book quite disappointing. The author has done a poor job of researching this topic, and jumbled up a number of dates and facts. In addition, there are a fair number of typos. Finally, the author consistently applies 21st-Century understandings on the Crusaders; for example, at one point he explains certain behaviors by the Crusaders as being the result of PTSD, a concept that is, at best, only a century old. And while the author does express an awareness of the very real threat that Christian Europe faced from Islam, he nonetheless dismissed all accounts of miraculous happenings during the Crusades as the result of hallucinations, betraying his naturalistic worldview and denying the possibility that a spiritual realm may exist
  
  My recommendation: If you want to read about the Crusades, find a book whose author is a much better researcher.
• 
  Neil Brunton

  Religion :just an excuse !
  
  I enjoy reading the one hour history books. I find them a quick starting point to begin reading up on a subject . This book was different as I've read a few books on the crusaders and I always come to the same conclusion,it was just a excuse for land & riches and most of all murder all wrapped up in the excuse that they were doing God's bidding . Today the leaders would be on trial for genocide ,as much as I've read about the crusaders and the Popes who sanctioned the crusades,they should be looked upon in the same way as Stalin ,Hitler Ivan the terrible ,I could go on and name other evil despots . There is no need for me to because evil is evil no matter what flag it's wrapped in.
• 
  Angieleigh

  A friend suggested that I check out the Hourly History books as they're short books about things that have happened in history that you can read in an hour or less.
  
  ...That's probably pretty obvious already.
  
  I decided to read the Crusades first as it caught my attention.
  
  50 pages may seem too short to do the history of the Crusades justice, but they pack a LOT of information in those 50 pages. So much so that I felt lost more than once; I think you have to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of what the Crusades are to understand everything.
  
  I do have to admit that I was bored a time or two, but I will be checking out more of the Hourly History books.
• 
  Nihal Lele

  The Crusades were one of the biggest and costliest holy wars. Knights sent by the Pope to recover the Holy Land of Jerusalem, The Crusades had failed in almost every campaign; apart from the first and fourth Crusade. However, in the end, they weren't able to take back Jerusalem, and it remained under the hands of the Muslims.
  This book just gives a brief introduction to all the nine crusades, including their starts, outcomes, and much more. It doesn't the information on how they were fought, or, what were their strategies. Also, it was written from The Christians' point of view, making the book feel one-sided.
• 
  Nassia Tanri Asik

  The Crusades as subtitled From Beginning to End is an interesting fast read. It rallied the historical events during dark ages and how holy wars were launched in the name of God for the different spheres wether it's western or eastern. The hotspot Jerusalem was the centre of conflict moving forward towards Constantinople the last hut of the Byzantin Empire.
  I read it with sleepy eyes, I was undecided about the author for it sounds the book reflects its author's staunch on what took place years ago !!!???
• 
  William

  This was the most sympathetic treatment of the crusades I have ever read or heard. I was impressed with the author being understanding of the genuineness of the Crusaders’ faith, as well as his stark honesty about medieval Muslim aggression. This book also treats more briefly on what is typically construed as the crusades than I expected, and extends its discussion to some battles that I have not heard grouped in this way before.
  My one criticism is some slightly unprofessional terminology when discussing events.
• 
  David Parker

  Fighting for s lost cause
  
  And there it is, as pure as snow
  I couldn't see it for my head was too low
  And prying eyes, they stoop too low
  Poisoning my soul, as sanity waits in the gallows
  Defeated I, fighting for a lost cause
  Depleted I, dying for the wrong cause
  These are the hours on the range
  The more you show them
  The more they choose to take away
  Some things never change in the wings
  And as it's your war
  There'll be no escape at all
• 
  John Deardurff

  A crash course into The Crusades. Obviously being just over 50 pages this Hourly History title does not do justice for an in-depth understanding of the topic. Fortunately, I was not looking for in-depth, but a primer to gain at least a rudimentary knowledge of what the Crusades. And that is exactly what I obtained from reading this book. I did find the writing hard to follow and jumpy, I'm not sure if that is because of the format or the author.
• 
  James

  The introduction has an anti-Islam message, mentioning how ISIS is a problem and draws parallels with how Islamic armies triggered the necessity of The Crusades; where Christian armies marched across Europe to defend or take back Christian states. Once you get past this blasphemous/controversial introduction, it seems a decent but brief read about the history of The Crusades. I don’t recall any other profound opinions during the main content.
• 
  IVETTE QUINONES RAMIREZ

  Excellent brief summary of this movement at the moment of the history,easily reading with specific description of the facts,it's so comfortable that motivates to continue the lecture definitely I recommend it.
  
  Excellent brief summary of this movement in the history,easily reading with specific description of the facts ,so comfortable that motivates to continue the lecture,definitely recommend this book