Rating: 
Summary: An excellent warning for the present
Review: Karen Armstrong is one of the best and most sympathetic historians of the three monothesitic faiths. Holy War shows the Crusades from all three religious points of view. She shows how attitutdes in Europe in the 11th to 13th Century are similar to those in modern Israel and the Arab nations today. She points out that the Crusades were NOT, as is often portrayed, overwhelming Western force armed with superior technology and greater military organization thrown at a backward weak Islam. Instead they were a fanatical and backward people attacking a land they knew nothing about in hopes of forcing God to bring the milleninum. In her modern sections she shows that both Arabs and Israelis are seeking to create a new identity for themselves after centuries of (later) Western rule. Neither had had any problems or disllike of the the other until the issue of Palestine drove them into endless war. Above all she shows how the idea of "holy war" develops not out of an inherent dislike of "the other" or some aggressive tendency among the monothestic faiths, but out of a profound crisis of identity among the perpetrators. The idea of the "other," the dark mirror of the self, develops only AFTER the holy war has started. As we contemplate yet another war against an Arab nation with the hopes of bring Western values to the area, we should remember the mistakes made since 1095.
Rating: 
Summary: An apologia for Islamic totalitarianism and fundamentalism
Review: Karen Armstrong was awarded the 1999 Muslim Public Affairs Council Media Award; after reading Holy War it is plain to see why. Whereas her later works, in particular The Battle for God presents a fair,balanced account of the history of Jewish, Christian and Muslim fundamentalism, this even-handed treatment is absent in this earlier work. Holy War is a readable, and
interesting political/historical account of the Crusades and their impact on our current world- however the author strains much too hard to justify and excuse Islamic and Arab behavior.
According to Ms. Armstrong, the Crusades were merely a side-show for the Islamic world, a border conflict, until western imperialism ( in the form of Christian crusaders) forced the Islamic world to rediscover "jihad". Thus,Islamic extremism is the fault of the west. Like, Susan Sontag, Ms. Armstrong would have us believe that on Sept.11th the US got what it deserved as a representitive of western culture. Similarly, she is an apologist for arab anti-semitism claiming that modern anti-semitism is a european phenomenon arising from the crusaders.
She would have us believe that the Koran and Muslims accept Jews as "people of the book" and have no inate bias againt Jews.
I wonder if besides adding a preface to the new edition, Ms. Armstrong would have liked to add to the epilogue in which the west, Christian and Jew alike, is blamed for all the problems facing the poor Muslim.
Rating: 
Summary: How the Middle East Was Won and Where It Got Us
Review: Like a good many readers, I'm in Karen Armstrong's debt for a number of memorable books. Frankly, if I'd started out with this effort, I might not have gone on to devour so much of her stuff. Back at the end of the eighties she had not yet perfected her writing style, and it can get pretty dry, especially in the long chapters which aren't about the Crusades, but about the history of the middle east since 1947. I've been around for most all of that history, and (except for some illuminating pages about the internal politics of Egypt) it was a twice told tale to me. The sixty percent that dealt with the Crusades themselves, though, and the roots of Zionism, gave me what I wanted: a quickie primer on a large swath of history that, just as Armstrong says, continues to be deeply relevant to today's headlines, but about which I knew next to nothing. Some of that history is fascinating in its own right: the instant myth of "the Children's Crusade", how the sixth Crusade came to be led by an emperor whom the Pope excommunicated as he sailed for the east; Saint Francis' mission to the Saracens, and a good deal more. It's also true that the publisher whipped the book out of cold storage after 9/11, with just a few paragraphs of additional commentary from the author, so all of the modern information is a decade out of date. I expected that, so it wasn't an annoyance. Overall, I give it 3 and a half stars. I was going to call it three, until I got a gander at all the negative reviews here, largely from people who seem to go ballistic at the notion that Islam isn't profoundly evil to its core. I disagree with those reviews. By no means does this book cater to political correctness in order to give the Islamic corner of the religious triad a free ride. Here, as in all her books, Karen Armstrong is fair minded, and fair minded almost to a fault. Yes, she bends over backwards to see the Arabic world from its own point of view; because she bends over backwards to see every culture she talks about from its own point of view. She doesn't mince the ugly events: she calls a spade a spade, a broken treaty a broken treaty, a massacre a massacre, and violent fanaticism violent fanaticism, no matter who is perpetrating it. There's plenty here to offend all three of the Abrahamic faiths, since all three have been guilty of idiocies and atrocities, which each has papered over with embarrassed silence. She does devote more space and energy to presenting the Islamic interpretation of events. But that's an unavoidable part of her job, since we her readers are already fully familiar with the Christian and Jewish points of view on all this long and sorry history (and that was even more true when the book was written a decade ago.) I didn't get the sense that her reportage of the events themselves was skewed in any way, and she leaves the readers free to make alternate interpretations if we so desire. It's an introduction, by an intelligent non-historian with commendably wide sympathies. It doesn't pretend to be a be-all and end-all. I'm glad to have got this primer under my belt. I made it through the dry parts, and enjoyed the medieval parts, and it made me feel better prepared to tackle a more substantial work, like Hourani's _History of the Arab People_, which has been sitting on my shelf intimidatingly for a few years now.
Rating:
Summary: The Other Side of the Story
Review: Ms. Armstrong has presented the other side of the story of the Middle East -- one that differs from the (Orthodox) position of Western Civilization historians. She has managed to put a human face on the Islamic civilizations that inhabited the Middle East prior to the Crusades and general westernization of the rest of the world. Reading this book in light of the 11 September events, gives a new, and chilling, perspective on the nature of what is happening in the world. In one, almost prophetic, sentence she alludes to the potential for a Western-Islamic Cold war in the 21st Century. I'm not sufficiently versed in all the aspects of scholarship in this area to know if hers is 100%, I do know that many of the current situations do seem to link back to events that shaped the nature of the Middle and Near-East to become what they are today. I did have my eyes opened, and can see her point of the "Three Sided" nature of the area. Read this book if you want to get an insight to a view of the story that you will not get in the news today. Add the new information to what you read in this book and then draw your conclusions -- they may frighten you totally.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant thesis that unmasks centuries of complex lies
Review: The most amazing thing about this book is that it remains one of the best kept secrets of this century. Karen Armstrong's brilliance shines throughout the book. Expert knowledge of the subject,freedom of spirit and writing talent have combined to make this a very easy to read fresh and convincing new perspective on the history of the last millenium. The brilliance of the book lies in its potential to liberate its readers from a legacy of centuries of lies. This book is a must read for anyone wishing to strengthen his or her hope for a better future in a more global economy and a more inter-dependent world.
Rating: 
Summary: Flawed thesis and tunnel vision: interesting dishonesty
Review: The reader must approach this book very carefully, because Armstrong's thesis does not work. She links the past of almost one thousand years ago and argues that today's problems in the Middle East must be understood as a development of the Crusades and that the mistrust and hostility that Muslims and Arabs (not the same thing, but often the terms are confused) in general feel toward Europeans and/or Westerners, and vice-versa, stem from the legacy of the Crusades. My problem with Armstrong is that she selectively goes to a certain chapter in History, then she selectively decides what to mention, and finally she selectively connects that past with the 20th century. This would do for shallow journalism, but not for History, and Armstrong, although apparently not a historian, tries very hard to write History with a capital H. Islam invaded the lands of the Christians first. How many times must this be stressed? Armstrong writes about the pre-Crusades Muslim conquests but she is not critical, on the contrary, her attitude is so pro-Muslim that her credibility suffers: if the teritory is conquered or attacked by Christians, it is a catastrophe. If Muslims do the conquering, then it is a positive development. Armstrong does not see that, however ambitious the popes, barbarian the Normans, and greedy the Europeans in general, Christianity had every right to feel threatened by Islam throughout the Middle Ages and well into the 17th century. The Moslem Arabs had invaded Christian North Africa and eliminated Christianity from there. Then they invaded the Levant, which had belonged to the Byzantine empire. They also invaded the Christian civilization of Roman and Visigothic Spain in 711 AD. They invaded Sicily, Southern Italy, sacked Rome, and kept on pushing against Byzantium in the East. Then, and only then, came the Crusades, which ended in total defeat for the Latin Christians and so weakened the Byzantine empire that it could not resist the new wave of attacks that the recent converts to Islam, the Turks, unleashed. The problem in "Holy War" is that the Muslim invasions of Christian and non-Christian lands count for nothing. Those invasions followed a policy of imperialism, since the Muslims attacked the Zoroastrian domain of Persia and later Hindu India as early as 712. Also, it counts for nothing that, after the Crusades were over and the Christians had been defeated, a very triumphant Islam proceeded again to conquer. If Islam lost Spain and Portugal by the end of the 15th century, it made up the loss by conquering the Byzantine empire, invading all of Asia Minor (today's Turkey), Greece, the Balkans, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and reaching the gates of Vienna. This little chapter of history, spanning several centuries, practically does not exist for Armstrong. The pages that deal with the rise of the Ottoman empire and the rise of Europe serve mostly to show how "bad" both Europeans and Turks were for thwarting the Arabs. The author has tunnel vision: at one end of the tunnel, the Crusades; at the other end, the Modern Middle East. All of what happened before the Crusades, and all the centuries of Muslim expansion and conquest that came after, are treated as unimportant. The one star is because the book has many endnotes, providing the reader with plenty of additional material for independent research, and because by reading it some people may become more interested in the Crusades, or Medieval Europe, or history in general. But, again, beware of the thesis: its flaw makes it untenable. If you want to read about the Crusades, try Riley-Smith's "Brief History of the Crusades" and, as editor, "Atlas of the Crusades." Also, Billings' "The Cross and the Crescent" is good and not long. Runciman's "History of the Crusades" (3 vols.), although biased against the Latins, is excellent. Regarding anti-Semitism (or Judeophobia, a better term) read Bernard Lewis' "Semites and anti-Semites," or Netanyahu's "Origins of the Inquisition in 15th century Spain." Armstrong's book has an interesting thesis that simply does not work. She, and all the authors who want to link the Crusades to the present, should also link the Crusades with a medieval Christianity besieged by a powerful and very militant Islamic empire, both before and after the period between the 11th and the 13th centuries. To ignore Islamic imperialism while castigating the European/Christian variety is to be dishonest.
Rating:
Summary: Overlooking the obvious
Review: There are some things that are easy to overlook for being so obvious: Ms. Armstrong's thesis - tracing back the current Middle East crisis to its roots in the Crusades, and before - is a wonderful summary for the Western readers, who may "know" the subject but mainly through its more romantic (and, as she shows, perversely distorted) history. She has a way of telling the old tales (plus adding some news ones) that's a continual challenge to "get past" our limited cultural boundaries.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding and factual review
Review: This book is an excellent and factual review of the events. Karen Armstrong is able to tie the events of the past with the present conflicts extremely well. Unlike other authors she is free of any prejudice agianst muslims (which is quite pervasive amongst other historians). She gives a clear description of events which is worth reading. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. This a timely reprint. Thank you Ms. Armstrong.
Rating:
Summary: A great book... too bad it's out of print.
Review: This book will give you a really good understanding of how three faiths have fought over the "holy land". Its main study is of the crusades, but it also goes into really good detail of the conflicts in the modern-day middle east. It shows that there are many similarities and recurring themes in the crusades and the modern conflict. I was very impressed with her knowledge and objectivity.
Rating:
Summary: Courageous attempt to build bridges
Review: This is an excellent attempt to disentangle the many historical layers that gave rise to anger and hate among the three monotheistic religions that were born in the Middle East.
Instead of the usual intellectually lethargic accounts, which often find the origins of such hatred in the tenets of one of the three religions, Judaism, Christianity or Islam, Armstrong traces the roots of many attitudes and assumptions that fueled war among these religions in various historical episodes. An Englishwoman and an ex-nun, the author delves into the history of the Church with courageous energy to explore what few dare to contemplate. Most interesting.
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