Rodney Stark

God’s Battalions

The Case for the Crusades

Talking Points

As a former journalist, Rodney Stark writes brillantly for a general audience with the authority of a top scholar of Christian social history. In the wake of many recent books justifying Muslim holy wars by criticizing the historic use of violence by Christians, Stark presents the other side of the story. Drawing upon a wide variety of sources, Stark argues the facts and figures about why and how Christianity attempted to secure the Holy Lands and protect the safety of Christian pilgrims. Stark can speak about the exciting story of medieval Templar knights, swords and scimitars, seige engines, and battles to keep the most ardent military history buff enthralled.

Description

In God’s Battalions, award-winning author Rodney Stark takes on the long-held view that the Crusades were the first round of European colonialism, conducted for land, loot, and converts by barbarian Christians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. Instead, Stark argues that the Crusades were the first military response to Muslim terrorist aggession.

In God’s Battalions, Stark reviews the history of the seven major crusades from 1095-1291, demonstrating that the Crusades were precipitated by Islamic provocations: by centuries of bloody attempts to colonize the West, and by sudden new attacks on Christian pilgrims and holy places. Although the Crusades were initiated by a plea from the pope, this had nothing to do with hopes of converting Islam.