A Different Outlook On God's Battalions By Rodney Stark

A Different Outlook on the Crusades Rodney Stark, author of the monograph God’s Battalions: The Case for the Crusades, displays a different approach than most of what he believes was the cause of the crusades. The monograph displays the events of the crusades in chronological order to get an accurate understanding of what happened and when. The question that Stark is researching is the true cause of the crusades. In his introduction, Stark explains the general view of what historians believed caused the crusades. He explains many different popular interpretations on how and why the crusades began. Stark opposes all of these popular interpretations. Stark argues that the attacks of the Christians may not have officially begun until Pope Urban II famous speech, but the crusades have been provoked from nearly 600 years of the Muslims constantly attacking the Christians and eventually taking over the holy land.

He also evaluates the pope’s speech declaring the crusades in depth, which he explains that the crusaders truly believed that they were fighting for god; they were fighting in “God’s battalions”. A major point Stark wants the reader to take away by the end of the monograph is that the Muslims did not hold a grudge on the Westerns because of the crusades. There was originally no hatred for the Christians and Westerners after the crusades; the hatred did not develop until later on. He provides examples from many historians saying that the Muslims hate Western Christians countries because of the crusades. Starks explains that the Muslims did not seem to pay much attention to the crusades when they were occurring and for centuries after. The crusades were not brought as a brutal attack onto the Muslims and it did not fuel their anger until the 20th