Craft Of Histoy Analysis
Craft of Histoy
Over the course of the last sixty years, The Crusades have been a topic of passionate scholarly debate and investigation. Often considered to be one of the most unique movements in human history, The Crusades have been marveled by historians and readers alike. While scholarly enthusiasm for The Crusades was certainly not deficient throughout the latter half of the 20th century, interest in The Crusades has increased considerably within the last decade following the September 11th attacks in 2001. Post 9/11, thousands of scholarly articles and books probing and challenging the scholarship of The Crusades have been issued. For example, historical author Karen Armstrong, re-issues her book Holy War whenever a potential conflict …show more content…
Thomas Asbridge like other notable historians such as Christopher Tyerman and Johnathan Phillips (two other crusade historians who released books around the same time as Asbridge), sought to bring decades of recent scholarship and research to a popular audience.14 While Asbridge was critical of Pope Urban II and the agenda of The Crusaders, his analysis of The Crusade was not as pessimistic as many of the influential works of the past had been. Throughout the monograph, Asbridge shares new research and insight into The Crusades while simultaneously describing the points at which scholarly debates exist within the history. The First Crusade: A New History focuses heavily on the analysis of Pope Urban II, an integral character in the story of The Crusade. In his discussion of Pope Urban II’s intentions at the Council of Clermont, Asbridge argues that the call for a crusade was proactive rather than reactive: a relatively uncommon opinion within popular histories of The Crusade.15 Asbridge denies the existence of a critical schism between Islam and Christendom: an apparent pretense to the First Crusade: “The image of Muslims as brutal oppressors conjured by Pope Urban was pure propaganda- if anything, Islam had proved over the preceding centuries to be more tolerant of other religions than Catholic Christendom.”16 In acute contrast to the notion that The Crusades were launched in defense to the expansion of Islam in the east: an opinion held by leading crusade historian Thomas F. Madden,17 Asbridge notes that, “The reality was that, when Pope Urban proclaimed the first crusade at Clermont, Islam and Christendom had coexisted for centuries in relative equanimity.”18 In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, a period of intense cultural change; this
Over the course of the last sixty years, The Crusades have been a topic of passionate scholarly debate and investigation. Often considered to be one of the most unique movements in human history, The Crusades have been marveled by historians and readers alike. While scholarly enthusiasm for The Crusades was certainly not deficient throughout the latter half of the 20th century, interest in The Crusades has increased considerably within the last decade following the September 11th attacks in 2001. Post 9/11, thousands of scholarly articles and books probing and challenging the scholarship of The Crusades have been issued. For example, historical author Karen Armstrong, re-issues her book Holy War whenever a potential conflict …show more content…
Thomas Asbridge like other notable historians such as Christopher Tyerman and Johnathan Phillips (two other crusade historians who released books around the same time as Asbridge), sought to bring decades of recent scholarship and research to a popular audience.14 While Asbridge was critical of Pope Urban II and the agenda of The Crusaders, his analysis of The Crusade was not as pessimistic as many of the influential works of the past had been. Throughout the monograph, Asbridge shares new research and insight into The Crusades while simultaneously describing the points at which scholarly debates exist within the history. The First Crusade: A New History focuses heavily on the analysis of Pope Urban II, an integral character in the story of The Crusade. In his discussion of Pope Urban II’s intentions at the Council of Clermont, Asbridge argues that the call for a crusade was proactive rather than reactive: a relatively uncommon opinion within popular histories of The Crusade.15 Asbridge denies the existence of a critical schism between Islam and Christendom: an apparent pretense to the First Crusade: “The image of Muslims as brutal oppressors conjured by Pope Urban was pure propaganda- if anything, Islam had proved over the preceding centuries to be more tolerant of other religions than Catholic Christendom.”16 In acute contrast to the notion that The Crusades were launched in defense to the expansion of Islam in the east: an opinion held by leading crusade historian Thomas F. Madden,17 Asbridge notes that, “The reality was that, when Pope Urban proclaimed the first crusade at Clermont, Islam and Christendom had coexisted for centuries in relative equanimity.”18 In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, a period of intense cultural change; this