Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

This was a challenging reading experience, and I struggle to put into words why.

I loved Maalouf's reflections on identity and cultural belonging, In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong, to the extent that I read it with students several times. I admired his autobiographical work Origins, which offers an explanation for his deep understanding of the diverse strands that make up an individual personality, shaped by numerous family patterns, education and personal experience.

I thought I would love his well-researched, brilliantly detailed account of the crusades from the perspective of the Arab world as well. It promised to deliver new angles on a topic I had already studied with interest from the more common European standpoint, giving me a unique opportunity to gain better insight into the other side of the story that features the origin of East-West, Islam-Christian clashes - with lasting effects reaching into our contemporary world and history writing.

I had to force myself to read on however. On multiple occasions, I was about to break it off altogether. Why?

It was not the fact that all names and events seemed strangely distorted, told without the overarching context I was used to. That was quite charming, actually, once I got used to it. I had no issues whatsoever with the narrative bias either, as that was what I expected and hoped for.

What made me cringe, over and over again?

The interchangeable actors in a play filled with shortsighted power struggles, hubris, greed, stupidity and violence.

It does not really MATTER that the perspective has changed from a European to an Arab setting. The reckless, faithless, brutal rapists and killers are just the same on both sides of the conflict. Yes, it is true that the crusaders are guilty of invasion, and the Arab local community is innocent. In that respect, the Christian rulers and their followers certainly are more guilty than the defenders of their own territory. But the outcome for the narrative is the same. One sequence of treason, violence, cowardice and war after the other, with no end in sight. What that means for civilians, and most of all women and children, I do not want to describe in detail.

Such a completely meaningless, utterly idiotic conflict, forced upon people by criminal kings and churches in Europe, carried out by armies full of violent, uneducated brutal men, claiming to be acting in the name of an all-powerful god. Both sides were convinced that they were divinely justified to kill and ravage according to their current political needs.

The book was, to be short and precise, too depressing to make a rewarding read.

As it focuses on the military aspects rather than on cultural questions, I missed the erudite and balanced prose that I am used to from Maalouf, and had to work my way through countless sieges, all quite similar, regardless of which side won, and which side suffered more - depending on occasion.

I believe it is important for this book to exist, and to be read, especially by European historians, but it was hard - very hard - to digest.