Glory of the Crusades - Paperback

by Steve Weidenkopf (Author)

How can the Crusades be called "glorious"? Our modern mindset says they were ugly wars of greed and religious intolerance--a big reason why Christians and Muslims today can't coexist peacefully. Historian Steve Weidenkopf challenges this received narrative with The Glory of the Crusades. Drawing on the latest and most authentic medieval scholarship, he presents a compelling case for understanding the Crusades as they were when they happened: "armed pilgrimages" driven by a holy zeal to recover conquered Christian lands. Without whitewashing their failures and even crimes, he debunks the numerous myths about the Crusades that our secular culture uses as clubs to attack the Church. In place of these myths he offers men and women of faith and valor who pledged their lives for the honor of Christ's holy places. With a storyteller's gift, Weidenkopf relates the Crusades' many dramas--their heroes and villains, battles and sieges, intrigues and coincidences--offering a vivid and engrossing account of events that, though centuries old, have profoundly affected the course of our world to the present day.

Author Biography

Steve Weidenkopf teaches at the Christendom College Graduate School of Theology. He is the author of The Church and the Middle Ages: 1000-1378 (2020); Timeless: A History of the Catholic Church (2019): The Real Story of Catholic History: Answering Twenty Centuries of Anti-Catholic Myths (2017); The Glory of the Crusades (2014); and is the creator and co-author of Epic: A Journey Through Church History and the author of The Early Church adult faith formation studies. Steve is a member of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East, an international academic group dedicated to the field of Crusading history. He is also a Knight of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. Steve and his wife live in Northern Virginia and are blessed with six children and one grandchild.