Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. Generally portrayed as a series of unprovoked holy wars against Islam, they are supposed to have been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance -- a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western, Christian civilization in general. Since September 11, variations of this theme have been used to explain -- even justify -- Muslim terror against the West. Former president Bill Clinton himself, in a speech at Georgetown University, fingered Muslim anger at the Crusades as the "root cause" of the present conflict.

But the truth is that the Crusades had nothing to do with colonialism or unprovoked aggression -- and in A Concise History of the Crusades, renowned medieval historian Thomas F. Madden sets the record straight. The Crusades, he shows, were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense. Their entire subsequent history is one of Western reaction to Muslim advances -- they were no more offensive than was the American invasion of Normandy.

Get hundreds of "politically incorrect" facts like these:

• Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword.

• With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed's death. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt -- once the most heavily Christian areas in the world -- quickly succumbed.

• By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul.

• The Byzantine Empire was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

• The end of the medieval Crusades did not bring an end to Muslim jihad -- Islamic states like Mamluk Egypt continued to expand in size and power, and the Ottoman Turks built the largest and most awesome state in Muslim history.

• Under Suleiman the Magnificent the Turks came within a hair's breadth of capturing Vienna, which would have left all of Germany at their mercy. At that point Crusades were no longer waged to rescue Jerusalem, but Europe itself.

• It is often asserted that Crusaders were merely lacklands and ne'er-do-wells who took advantage of an opportunity to rob and pillage in a faraway land. Recent scholarship has demolished that contrivance. The truth is that the Crusades were notoriously bad for plunder. A few people got rich, but the vast majority returned with nothing.

• The Ottoman Turks conquered not only their fellow Muslims, thus further unifying Islam, but also continued to press westward, capturing Constantinople and plunging deep into Europe itself. By the 15th century, the Crusades were no longer errands of mercy for a distant people but desperate attempts of one of the last remnants of Christendom to survive. Europeans began to ponder the real possibility that Islam would finally achieve its aim of conquering the entire Christian world.

• In 1529, Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to Vienna. If not for a run of freak rainstorms that delayed his progress and forced him to leave behind much of his artillery, it is virtually certain that the Turks would have taken the city.

• Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that the world we know today would not exist without their efforts. Without the Crusades, Christianity might well have followed Zoroastrianism, another of Islam's rivals, into extinction.

Filled with dozens of maps, illustrations, and photographs

A Concise History of the Crusades by Thomas F. Madden This hard-to-find release is on sale now for only $17.95 -- almost 20% off the publisher's price. Click here to order now.

---

What Muslims, multiculturalists, and the media hope you never find out about Islam

 

Save 20% off bookstore price. Click here to order.

The Sword of the Prophet by Serge Trifkovic "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" Since the attacks of September 11, dozens of books have been rushed to market purporting to "explain" the religion in whose name the terrorists acted. Most of them strike a common theme: "true" Islam -- as opposed to the "fundamentalist" variety of the hijackers -- is a "religion of peace" that promotes charity, tolerance, freedom, and culture no less than "true" Christianity.

---

We also recommend this publishing milestone...

The first comprehensive defense by a major scholar of the historical truth of the entire Old Testament

Save 20% off bookstore price. Click here to order.

On the Reliability of the Old Testament by K.A. Kitchen "After decades of 'minimalism,' it is refreshing to have this first systematic refutation from the opposite position. It provides a step-by-step review of the evidence for biblical history in its Near Eastern context by a leading authority equally at home in Egyptology as in the archaeology, history, and literature of ancient Western Asia. K.A. Kitchen writes with conviction and verve, not sparing those who are 'factually disadvantaged' or who 'do not do their Near Eastern homework. He takes readers back through time like an archaeologist digging a mound." -- William W. Hallo, Yale University

For more than 200 years, questions about the factuality of the Old Testament have led many critics to see it as little more than pious fiction. In this fascinating new book, noted ancient historian K.A. Kitchen takes strong issue with today's "revisionist" critics and offers a firm foundation for the historicity of the biblical texts.

In a detailed, comprehensive, and entertaining manner, Kitchen draws on an unprecedented range of historical data from the ancient Near East -- the Bible's own world -- using it to soundly reassess both the biblical record and the critics who condemn it. Working back from the latest periods (for which hard evidence is readily available) to the remotest times, Kitchen systematically critiques the many failures of favored arguments against the Bible and marshals the pertinent evidence from antiquity's inscriptions and artifacts to demonstrate the basic honesty of the Old Testament writers. On the Reliability of the Old Testament is a must-read for anyone interested in the question of biblical truth.

"A tour de force that questions many of the simplistically assumed hypotheses of Old Testament scholarship while at the same time contributing to a more comprehensive understanding of the environment in which the Hebrew Bible was composed. Kitchen's lifetime of study of the ancient context of the Old Testament makes this volume a must-read."
-- K. Lawson Younger, Jr., Trinity International University

K.A. Kitchen’s On the Reliability of the Old Testament is now available for 20% off the bookstore price. Click here to order now.

---

Conservative Book Club
One Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001