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Nov. 19th, 2008 01:45 pmMy library books are overflowing my shelf! I have been trying so hard to keep my return rate higher than my check-out rate, so I went to the library and returned four books yesterday on the way to my dance class . . . and walked out with five. In my defense, two of them are extremely short! Um.
Anyways, booklogging: I forget where I heard the existence of Amin Maalouf's The Crusades Through Arab Eyes mentioned, but since I still have a whole slew of Crusades facts buzzing around in my head from the class I took my final semester at school I was definitely intrigued. And rightfully! I had read several of the Arab sources on the Crusades that he uses in class, but it was very cool to have someone string them all together into a coherent narrative, focusing mostly on the time period from the First Crusade through the Fourth. Admittedly I got a little confused between all the different sultans and emirs, but that is because one of them was assassinated literally every other page, which made it somewhat tricky to keep track. The levels of infighting were fascinating and ridiculous, on both sides. The author also has a giant crush on Saladin, but it's hard to blame him, because really who doesn't? (He has his own animated TV show in Malaysia!)
I do wish Maalouf had used even more of the primary source material than he did, but I am spoiled; my favorite Crusades text is still Jean de Joinville's Chronicles of the Crusades, which is a primary source narrative from the Fourth Crusade and awesome. I do get the impression Maalouf interpolates more primary narrative than a lot of history texts do. I also really liked his epilogue, in which he delves a little bit into the possible consequences of the Crusades for contemporary relations, and I sort of wish he'd had the room to go into that more. Anyways, recommended for anyone who has an interest in medieval history.
Anyways, booklogging: I forget where I heard the existence of Amin Maalouf's The Crusades Through Arab Eyes mentioned, but since I still have a whole slew of Crusades facts buzzing around in my head from the class I took my final semester at school I was definitely intrigued. And rightfully! I had read several of the Arab sources on the Crusades that he uses in class, but it was very cool to have someone string them all together into a coherent narrative, focusing mostly on the time period from the First Crusade through the Fourth. Admittedly I got a little confused between all the different sultans and emirs, but that is because one of them was assassinated literally every other page, which made it somewhat tricky to keep track. The levels of infighting were fascinating and ridiculous, on both sides. The author also has a giant crush on Saladin, but it's hard to blame him, because really who doesn't? (He has his own animated TV show in Malaysia!)
I do wish Maalouf had used even more of the primary source material than he did, but I am spoiled; my favorite Crusades text is still Jean de Joinville's Chronicles of the Crusades, which is a primary source narrative from the Fourth Crusade and awesome. I do get the impression Maalouf interpolates more primary narrative than a lot of history texts do. I also really liked his epilogue, in which he delves a little bit into the possible consequences of the Crusades for contemporary relations, and I sort of wish he'd had the room to go into that more. Anyways, recommended for anyone who has an interest in medieval history.
