(no subject)

[skygiants]

My 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.

Comments

[skygiants]

I know! And even some of the nastier ones - I find it hilaroius how Richard the Lionheart also had a ginormous mancrush on him (in an enemies sort of way, obviously) and spent all this time trying to meet with him during the Third Crusade, and Saladin was like "um we do not have dinner while you are trying to invade my lands, that makes for awkwardness. You can have my brother to hang out with you, if you insist."

[avariel-wings.livejournal.com]

There's this story about how a Western woman's baby was stolen and sold as a slave and when she took it up with Saladin, he bought the baby back for her. Admittedly, that seems to be a Muslim writer, but monks talked about his chivalry in the chronicles.

[skygiants]

Yeah, that story was actually related in the book! And apocryphal or not, it's better than ever got related about any of the European kings even by their own chroniclers. (Admittedly, the European chronicles often tended towards a kind of frat-boy "WHOO YEAH, we resorted to cannibalism, BECAUSE WE ARE THAT HARDCORE!!!!" so, you know.)

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Richard the Lionheart had ginormous mancrushes on lots of people.

[skygiants]

So true! Where by 'giant mancrush' you mean 'historically probable hot gay sex' in many cases. (Although probably not with Saladin.)