Introduction: In recent years, the history of the European Middle Ages has become increasingly popular, and there are many works on the theme of "Crusade".
For example, Reilly Smith's "History of the Crusades" can be generalized, there are various works about the Crusades to the Holy Land (Crusades), and there are also works about the three major European knights, which can not be said to be rich.
The protracted Crusades in European history, in addition to being cruel and tragic, led to cultural integration, and "the more advanced Arab civilization at that time penetrated into the West through war and promoted the evolution of civilization."
【I】
It has to be said that history is always strikingly similar. At the end of the Western Jin Dynasty, the bloody Rebellion of the Eight Kings broke out, and the Hu people took the opportunity to unite to destroy the Western Jin Dynasty in one fell swoop.
After the fall of the Western Jin Dynasty, the imperial family of the Jin Dynasty and the vast number of residents of the Yellow River Basin in the north began to "cross the south with their crowns in their crowns". This southward crossing led to the decline of the Central Plains, the rise of the Jianghuai and Jiangnan regions.
Although the Wuhu Chaohua lasted for hundreds of years, it also promoted the great integration of nationalities, and only then did it have the sui and Tang dynasties. Harvard University has a well-known scholar who studies Chinese thought, Benjamin Schwartz.
What he had in common in his research of Western civilizations was the realization that both Chinese and Western civilizations were axial civilizations around 500 BC.
The problems faced by these ancient Axis civilizations are common, that is, the problems that all mankind has to face. For example: how to establish a good social and political order.
There is also how to establish a spiritual order that allows your mind to settle down; and how do you face the problem of life and death. These questions are all answered by Western civilization and Chinese civilization.
The human questions they face, both Chinese and Western, are common, but the way they are answered is different. The book "Crusader Movement" collects and references almost all the works published on the market on this subject.
On the one hand, it helps us to understand and grasp the subject as a whole, and on the other hand, the most direct one can learn and absorb ideas that have been formed before, so that we will not be troubled in this aspect.
【II】
Helen Nicholson's concise and introductory crusader book does have to be recommended to ordinary readers interested in the subject.
Needless to say, there is a huge gap between different cultures, even in today's highly developed Internet. The emperors and legends that are familiar to the Chinese people are still very fresh to Western readers.
Before listening to a Qing history researcher, most American history students do not know who China's Qianlong Emperor is, and they feel this, and Ou Lide wrote "Qianlong Emperor" to introduce the basic situation of this emperor in layman's terms.
Similarly, when we learn about foreign history, we may need a general book as a guide, especially on the subject of the "Crusades," which is still debated in Western historians.
The book is only a hundred thousand words, thin, but enough to assume the role of a guide. It was a no-brainer: no one definition of the Crusade could be agreed upon by all scholars, and there were currently four main conceptual categories in Western historiography.
The "category" thing is like muji's storage locket. When you have this box, the related items you see later can be summarized.
【III】
The book can also be such a tool, and then see more detailed books, you can straighten out the timeline and causal relationships, and avoid confusion caused by the conflict of different book statements.
In addition, it is in line with Reilly Smith's History of the Crusades, which sees the Crusades as an ongoing Christian movement.
In addition to successive expeditions to Jerusalem, the "reconquest movement" in Spain on the Iberian Peninsula, the purge of the Christian heretics and Hussites, the occupation of pagan settlements in the Baltic Sea region, and the resistance to the Ottoman Turks were all military expeditions authorized by the supreme religious leaders of Europe.
They were also incorporated into Helen Nicholson's writing framework. Spanning more than 500 years from the 11th to the 16th century, the book is also a work that cuts into the history of the European Middle Ages through a military perspective.
Finally, in terms of language style, the original book uses plain and precise words, and the structure of the sentences is quite simple, which is indeed a concise historical introduction book for ordinary readers in the West.
Similarly, the book strives to be expressed in a way that is most in line with popular habits, and wants to "sink" it to a degree that can be easily read by ordinary readers who do not have the background knowledge of this period of history.
【Conclusion】
In short, the reason for the surge in popularity in the medieval history of Europe is that people have a strong desire to understand the history of Europe, and of course, if they want to understand the Crusades, they must read these two books.
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Warring States
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[History is like a pot of old wine, it needs to be tasted carefully, here, calm down, I will take you through the past of a thousand years, come back, you will be more pink. Pay attention to your old friends: Reading history and knowing the heart]