Holy war

When Pope Urban II called on Christian fighters in 1095 to take up arms, the Byzantine lands had fallen to Turkish Muslim forces and Jerusalem, with the tomb of Jesus, was under Islamic rule. The appeal launched the Crusades, a campaign that drew the kingdoms of Europe together against a shared enemy.

Karen Armstrong contends that the Crusades, far from the chivalrous quests of popular imagination, were a string of brutal campaigns fought in the name of devotion to expand the power of the Western Church. She follows how that violence has carried forward, showing how it still shapes the long-running tensions among Christians, Jews and Muslims.

Armstrong is a former Catholic nun who became a well-known historian of religion, and this book draws on that background to examine faith and conflict together.