Heavy going and boring
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Big book, but does not seem to say a lot. I found it boring in the extreme without any real depth. A disappointment as I had expected more information and background on the characters involved. Instead, God's War seems to be more about the politics of the church,than the people who actually lived through the crusades. A missed opportunity for the author
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A flawed masterpiece
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Read the other reviews and you will see people either find this essential or annoyingly flawed. They are both right. No book has attempted to encompass not only the Eastern Crusades but also the crusading efforts in Northern Europe, Spain and looking at the later crusades too. Never has so much info covering so many cultures been crammed into 1 volume.
But, and it is a big but, there is an old literary saying "if you have a complex tale to tell then tell it simply" and this is where the book falls down. The language is dry and uses words such as fissiparous which means not only do you have to keep a plethora of characters, dates and events in your mind but you have to keep reaching for the dictionary too. It is also curiously unemotional when it comes to key/epic moments of the Crusades. I think Tyreman has confused being unbiased (which is appropriate given the topic)with being bland.
Also while the research is exhaustive and exhausting I do think the balance is a little odd, do we really need an exact itinerary of the preaching of the Second Crusade, Third Crusade and so on on to skim over things like what were the weapons and tactics of East versus West (this is hardly ever mentioned and never in any depth). Don't get me wrong the preaching is vital to the story but what made the crusades the crusades was the fighting and this does not get the same scrutiny as the liturgies going on in the Rhineland.
Saying that even an expert on the Crusades will find something new here, it's a very big mountain to climb (it took me months to get through and nobody can absorb it all after reading it just once) but the views from the top are spectacular.
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Stay put, Sir Steven Runciman
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It may be many decades since Sir Steven Runciman wrote his history of the crusades but his works still hold the double crown of interest and scholarliness. Christopher Tyerman's work is large, a physically heavy tome, and undoubtedly scholarly. It is however, written in a peculiarly academic style which makes much use of obscure words and written styles. Bookish, academic to a fault and clearly the product of the author's extensive understanding of the period. However, Christopher Tyerman fails to convey to me the fervour, passion and sheer excitement of this monumental period of East-West history. Sadly, I have put this book back on my shelf only one-third read.
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The definitive work on the Crusades
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Christopher Tyerman has produced the definitive work on The Crusades. Very well researched, even on the early Crusades where written records are scanty, compared to later in Crusader histery. Covers the the whole spectrum and mindworld of the men [ and women ] who for faith or greed, or a mixture of both, died and killed in pursuit of their dream of a Holy City, Jerusalem, and how once organized through preaching, propaganda and the giving and selling of indulgences through a smooth running Papal beaurocracy, the ritual of The Taking of the Cross became the mechanism for the slaughter of heretics, the pursuit of power and wealth by conquest, of Popes and Emperors and between Popes and Emperors, as well as the rise [ and fall ] of the Military Orders such as The Templars, Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights. Well written and an excellent read.
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Too long and slightly disappointing
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This is a mammoth and very ambitious book. The range of subjects covered is impressive but unfortunately the range is not quite matched by the depth. Some of the theses are as outdated as Runciman and clearly Tyerman is not at home with the crusades outside of the Holy Land. A more concise work with fuller use of primary sources would have perhaps been better. Nevertheless the book is undoubtedly an addition to the ever growing literature on the crusades.
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