The New York Times bestselling author of A History of God skillfully narrates the history of the Crusades with a view toward their profound and continuing influence. " Holy War  brings compassion, objectivity, breadth, and imagination to the most urgent crisis of our time." — The Boston Phoenix In 1095 Pope Urban II summoned Christian warriors to take up the cross and reconquer the Holy Land. Thus began the holy wars that would focus the power of Europe against a common enemy and become the stuff of romantic legend. In reality the Crusades were a series of rabidly savage conflicts in the name of piety. And, as Armstrong demonstrates in this fascinating book, their legacy of religious violence continues today in the Middle East, where the age-old conflict of Christians, Jews, and Muslims persists. "A tour de force. . . . Any reader will come away from this book with a better frame of reference for assessing today's headlines." — The Kansas City Star " Holy War brings compassion, objectivity, breadth, and imagination to the most urgent crisis of our time." — The Boston Phoenix "Erudite, balanced, and lucidly written. . . . [Provides] a mine of useful information on Muslim-Western perceptions of each other. . . . An important book." — Library Journal Karen Armstrong, bestselling author of A History of God , skillfully narrates this history of the Crusades with a view toward their profound and continuing influence. In 1095 Pope Urban II summoned Christian warriors to take up the cross and reconquer the Holy Land. Thus began the holy wars that would focus the power of Europe against a common enemy and become the stuff of romantic legend. In reality the Crusades were a series of rabidly savage conflicts in the name of piety. And, as Armstrong demonstrates in this fascinating book, their legacy of religious violence continues today in the Middle East, where the age-old conflict of Christians, Jews, and Muslims persists. Karen Armstrong, bestselling author of A History of God," skillfully narrates this history of the Crusades with a view toward their profound and continuing influence. In 1095 Pope Urban II summoned Christian warriors to take up the cross and reconquer the Holy Land. Thus began the holy wars that would focus the power of Europe against a common enemy and become the stuff of romantic legend. In reality the Crusades were a series of rabidly savage conflicts in the name of piety. And, as Armstrong demonstrates in this fascinating book, their legacy of religious violence continues today in the Middle East, where the age-old conflict of Christians, Jews, and Muslims persists. KAREN ARMSTRONG is the author of numerous other books on religious affairs—including A History of God, The Battle for God, The Case for God, Islam, Buddha, and The Great Transformation— and two memoirs, Through the Narrow Gate and The Spiral Staircase . Her work has been translated into forty-five languages. She has addressed members of the U.S. Congress on three occasions; lectured to policy makers at the U.S. State Department; participated in the World Economic Forum in New York, Jordan, and Davos; addressed the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington and New York; is increasingly invited to speak in Muslim countries; and is now an ambassador for the UN Alliance of Civilizations. In February 2008 she was awarded the TED Prize and recently launched with TED a Charter for Compassion, created online by the general public and crafted by leading thinkers in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism to restore compassion to the centre of morality and religion. She lives in London. 1 In the Beginning There Was the Holy War. Why? On November 25, 1095, at the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II summoned the First Crusade. For Western Europe it was a crucial and formative event and it is having repercussions today in the Middle East. Addressing a vast crowd of priests, knights and poor people, Urban called for a holy war against Islam. The Seljuk Turks, he explained, a barbarian race from Central Asia who had recently become Muslims, had swept into Anatolia in Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and had seized these lands from the Christian empire of Byzantium. The Pope urged the knights of Europe to stop fighting each other and to make common cause against these enemies of God. The Turks, he cried, are "an accursed race, a race utterly alienated from God, a generation, forsooth, which has neither directed its heart nor entrusted its spirit to God." Killing these godless monsters was a holy act: it was a Christian duty to "exterminate this vile race from our lands." Once they had purged Asia Minor of this Muslim filth, the knights would engage in a still more holy task. They would march to the holy city of Jerusalem and liberate it from the infidel. It was shameful that the tomb of Christ should be in the hands of Islam. There was an extraordinary response to Urban's appeal. Popular preachers like Peter the H