Reddit reviews The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (Saqi Essentials)

Then do this one

If you want to get the perspective of the crusades through the Arabs this is great read.
http://www.amazon.ca/Crusades-Through-Arab-Eyes/dp/0805208984

I come from no expertise on the subject (besides a college course on Europe in the High Middle Ages) but I picked up Amin Maalouf's The Crusades Through Arab Eyes and found it to be a fascinating read. ]

The author mostly draws from Arab chronicles to build an idea of how contemporary Arabs viewed the events of Crusades. Overall it was refreshing to read about one of the most controversial events in European Medieval history in a book that was almost completely derived from the Arab historiography. By not focusing on European sources and interpretations of the events, it was really interesting seeing the crusaders as this looming alien threat within the Muslim world.

That perspective made it all the more interesting to see how difficult it was for the Arab world to unite against what appeared to be a common threat, and how that political fragmentation allowed for alien European-Christian Kingdoms to exist within the Arab world for so long. Ultimately it was great read for a great vacation!

Might be a little different than your standard crusade narrative, but The Crusades through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf might be interesting for you. It was presented to me as a counterpoint to a standard, western historical interpretation of the crusades.

It's not necessarily from a shi'a perspective, but I highly recommend The Crusades through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf (author is a Christian Lebanese-French).

Actually, yes.

One of my favorite history-related books is The Cursades Through Arab Eyes which has had some rather anti-West summaries written about it in the past, but upon reading it, you find that those were most likely written by people trying to force their own biases onto it. So, while going by a summary might be good enough for deciding to read it or not for personal reasons, I really don't think it is good enough for judging, voting, or the like. (For the record, I'd really have no interest in reading it from the summary, and I'd write it off as drivel out of hand... but that's my reading choice.)

Obviously: http://www.amazon.com/Crusades-Through-Arab-Eyes-Essentials/dp/0805208984/

I read "The Crusades Through Arab Eyes" in College, that was a pretty good book. I can also recommend: "Muhammad, a prophet of our time" I read this also in college.

>I didn't realize the ottomans were oppressive.

Not sure I say would oppressive as much as just not being ruled by your own peoples and the loss of the glory days of the arab states (though this had started long before this, I believe by the time of the crusades, the turks already controlled Baghdad and most of Syria). From what I read, the big problem with arab lands was that there was no clear system of succession, so everytime a king died, it was a free for all, making states fractured and weak (often local emirs would ally with the crusaders vs other emirs, failing to see the big picture).


If your interested, I highly recommened this book.
http://www.amazon.com/Crusades-Through-Arab-Eyes/dp/0805208984

It hits upon them here
But since this is a primary source book, the whole thing makes for a marvelous read. I re-read it about once/year.

Many people here have suggested books on military tactics and warfare, and that's certainly a great place to start.

However, something that is oft-forgotten in fantasy warfare is the political elements of war. Because it's not enough that lands be conquered, they must also be kept.

A good place to start is Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince. It gives you a decent primer on the political landscape facing rulers, and the challenges faced in winning, losing, and keeping power.

However, from there you'll want to go for examples, and from there the best place is history. Most importantly, examples of history that tell the story of warfare, from beginning to end, so you can get a true sense of the purpose behind the conflicts. Here are a few examples that have been hugely influential in my own writings:

• Marc Morris' A Great and Terrible King: Edward I and the Forging of Britain - This one is about King Edward 'Longshanks' I, of Braveheart fame. He spent much of his reign at war, notably bringing Scotland and Wales under England's thumb. However, what this book does best is illustrate how war was only a single component of those conquests, with legal and political machinations making up the balance.
  
  
• Thomas Asbridge's The Crusades. This is one of my favourites. A truly epic telling of the Crusades that really gives you a feel for the players involved in the battles. One thing it really drove home for me was just how factitious and unstable the muslim caliphate was at the time. When we read about an "Empire" in books you think of massive, world-spanning governed by rulers who are practically gods. What you don't think of are religious figureheads ruling over a sea of feuding warlords whose conquests rarely persist beyond the death of their conqueror. For more on this, see The Crusade Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf.
  
  
• And finally, pretty much anything by Tom Holland. His books ramble, and his love for atrociously complex sentence structure is maddening at times, but he weaves history into tales that makes it readily apparent where many of the fantasy greats got their inspiration. Millenium is one I'm working on right now, which is rich in the Christian mythology that it's now obvious to me was the foundation for The Wheel of Time. He also wrote Rubicon, which I own but haven't really gotten to yet.

https://www.amazon.com/Concise-History-Crusades-Critical-International/dp/0742538230

Also a very good read

I was told by a historian that Jonathan Riley-Smith is one of the leading academics on the Crusades.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Crusades-History-Jonathan-Riley-Smith/dp/0300101287

Just as interesting and, from what I've been told, respected (to me, even more interesting, since the Arabs tend to be real drama-queens and the book seems to enforce that)

http://www.amazon.com/Crusades-Through-Arab-Eyes-Essentials/dp/0805208984

I suggest The Crusades Through Arab Eyes by Amin Maalouf for a different perspective.

sigh.

Are we just going to spew sources to back up our opinions? Here's a few of mine.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Crusades-Authoritative-History-Holy/dp/0060787295

http://www.amazon.com/Crusades-Through-Arab-Eyes-Essentials/dp/0805208984/ref=pd_bxgy_14_img_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1HKV23ZQ71QA77PH9C9E

http://www.amazon.com/Pope-Urban-IIs-Council-Piacenza/dp/0199258597/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459174862&sr=1-1&keywords=pope+urban+ii

Sorry, I don't have any quick to digest youtube videos to show you.