Front cover image for Warriors of God : Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade

Warriors of God : Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade

"James Reston, Jr., re-creates the collision of the Christian holy wars and the Muslim jihad at the end of the twelfth century. A dual biography of the legendary Richard the Lionheart and the Sultan Saladin, iconic hero of the Islamic world, Warriors of God recounts the life of each man and reveals the passions of the times that brought them face-to-face in the final battle of the Third Crusade." "Richard the Lionheart, commonly depicted as the romantic personification of chivalry, here emerges in his full complexity and contradiction as Reston examines the dark side of Richard's role as the leader of the blood-soaked Crusade and breaks new ground by openly discussing Richard's homosexuality. Reston's compelling portrait of Saladin brings to life the wise, highly cultured leader who realized an enduring Arab dream by uniting Egypt and Syria and whose conquest of Jerusalem not only sparked the Third Crusade but ignited the first jihad and turned Saladin into a hero of epic proportions. In riveting descriptions, Reston captures the fascinating clash of the two armies as they battled their way to the outskirts of Jerusalem. There, Saladin's brilliant maneuvers and Richard's sudden failure of nerve turned the tide. Sweeping readers into a mesmerizing period of history, Warriors of God is a provocative look at two towering leaders and the not always noble causes for which they fought."--Jacket
Print Book, English, 2001
First edition View all formats and editions
Doubleday, New York, 2001
Nonfiction
xx, 364 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
9780385495615, 9780571210572, 9780385495622, 0385495617, 0571210570, 0385495625
45283102
A sultan is born
The Kingdom of Heaven
The flint and the spark
Prince Richard
Jihad
Their lions were hedgehogs
Still water
Lovers and kings
The bride and the camel
Most gracious, most merciful
The house of David
Heathens in thine inheritance
Appointment at Vézelay
Red sails
Dispatches from the promised land
Visitations in Sicily
The fruit of Aphrodite
The holy text
Waste not the hire
Home fires smoldering
The plain of Sharon
The fourteenth day of Sha'bān the Honored
Angst and delirium amid the pomegranate trees
Sacred and demonic flame
The dagger on the pillow
The parable of the weeds
Samson's country
The dry tree of Hebron
The ram backs for butting
Here is my hand
A slender string
The last conquest
Not by their leaves or their blossoms, but by their fruit