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Tyerman dismisses such putative connections as nonsensical inventions. In doing so, he mirrors an emerging consensus among Crusade historians that the Islamic world largely forgot about the Crusades after 1300. After all, it had been the victor, and under Ottoman leadership, it put Christian Europe on the defensive for about 400 years. All of this changed around 1900. At that time, Muslim anger over European imperial designs on the Middle East provided sufficient context for it to create the image of the "crusading Christian West."

A book that runs more than 1,000 pages (including notes) might be ponderous and unreadable. It is not. Tyerman's touch is light, his prose sparkles, and his delightful wit gives it spice. Thus, Guibert of Nogent is characterized as "the snobbish, mother-fixated failed abbot." Later, we read that Louis VII observed, "We in France have nothing but bread, wine and gaiety," a sentiment that our author dismisses as "an early version of a characteristic, misleading French self-image."

It was a medieval cliché for scholars to state with either real or feigned modesty that if, perchance, they saw farther than the ancients, it was because they were like dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants. Well, Tyerman sees farther than Runciman in part because he is the beneficiary of the past half-century of intensive Crusade scholarship that Runciman helped set in motion. But he is no dwarf.

He is a giant who has contributed significantly to breakthroughs in historical perception and understanding. Tyerman presents his readers with not only the fruit of the most up-to-date scholarship but also his own mature reflections on the matter and meaning of the Crusades. He is unafraid to deal with the many uncertainties and ambiguities that surround this complex phenomenon. Above all, his book, despite a few minor errors (e.g., Aquinas was not a canon lawyer) and oversights (no bibliography), is judicious and dispassionate.

God's War is a joy to read, but only for those who like history that is complex, nuanced, and well-written.

Alfred J. Andrea, author of Encyclopedia of the Crusades (Greenwood Press, 2003) and faculty emeritus at the University of Vermont.

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

God's War: A New History of the Crusades is available from ChristianBook.com and other booksellers.

NPR interviewed Tyerman about his earlier work on the Crusades.

The Telegraph , the Times, and the Carnegie Council reviewed God's War.

Christian History & Biography has issues on the crusades and Christian-Muslims relations.

Other Christianity Today articles on Islam and the crusades include:

How Could Christians Crusade? | Why followers of the Prince of Peace waged war. (May 2005)

Crusades: Christians Apologize for Ancient Wrongs | Christians Retrace Crusaders' Steps

Waging Peace on Islam | A missionary veteran of Asia proposes one way to defuse Muslim anger about the Crusades. (June 2005)

Christian History Corner: Did Eric Rudolph Act in a Tradition of Christian Terror? | A historian considers the evidence of the Crusades and the Inquisition. (June 1, 2003)

Putting the Crusades in Perspective | Do your homework before you see Sir Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven" this May. (Christian News & Research, February 22, 2005)

A Muslim Perspective on War | "Muslim response to the Crusades showed jihad in action, and while the grievances have changed, the rhetoric still echoes." (October 1, 2001)

Philip Yancey wrote about Arab historians' perspectives on the Crusades in "It's Not About the Crusades," which also appeared on our website today.

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July 2007, Vol. 51, No. 7