Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2017 -

This is a popular history by one of the most prominent contemporary historians of the crusades. The book is eminently readable, with information and insights that will be new to the target audience. Lambert emphasizes the similarities (many) and differences (few, but important) between the concepts of holy war in Christendom and Islam, and the complexities of each religion. Younger readers will be struck by the chapter on the rise of Islam, older readers by the comments in the "Reflections" section. Thanks to the author's thorough familiarity with the Arabic sources touching on religion and the wars in the Holy Land, his narrative is at its strongest between the first crusade and the fall of Acre. Subsequent chapters have too much material to summarize easily. However, those chapters are necessary to reach modern times, when the word "crusade" becomes relevant only to Muslims and jihad has developed into the all-purpose justification for attacks on Westerners, Westernizers, and Muslims who follow different traditions. Lambert hopes that religious scholars can reassert the traditional religious meanings of jihad before the term causes yet more damage.Summing Up: Essential. Public and general libraries, and undergraduate and graduate students.