Crusades
How Crusades-era literature shaped the idea of the Christian West
Jay Rubinstein places himself in the apocalyptic mindset of authors like Joachim of Fiore.
Did Christianity destroy classical pagan culture?
Catherine Nixey is right: the early Christians were violently destructive. So were the Romans, the Persians, and the plagues that swept across the ancient world.
Religious violence? The politics of a higher law
Throughout history, people loyal to a higher law have been responsible for much violence. Should we reject appeals to a higher law?
by Ted A. Smith
Obama's entirely mild prayer breakfast speech
Chuck Todd may be right: Obama doesn’t like the National Prayer Breakfast, so he uses his speech to stir up trouble there. I don’t like it either. But it’s astonishing that this counts as trouble.
Armed and dangerous
Jay Rubenstein offers a lively and well-researched history of the First Crusade. He has a gift for making thousand-year-old history both exciting and relevant.
A review of God’s Battalions and Fighting for the Cross
There clearly has been a marked rise of interest in the Crusades since the start of the present war in Iraq--an interest spurred at least in part by President George W. Bush's talk of an American crusade against terror in the days following the 9/11 attacks. Up to this point, the renaissance in publications about the Crusades largely has been limited to works that fit squarely within traditional historical scholarship. Stark and Housley, on the other hand, provide Crusades volumes for an age in which information is targeted to distinct and splintered interest groups.