A 770 Year War in Spain?
A 1,122 year war in Eastern Europe?
Unfortunately our version of Western history only goes back to 1776, so we cannot know, from our opaque thumbnail window of self-hate, what came before. This is one of Stefan’s better presentations and might hopefully ignite some curiosity on the languishing subject.
There were significant benefits to European knowledge had through this centuries’ long slugfest with Islam, introducing navigational and nautical methods and means, as well as the motivation to circumnavigate Africa, and the world, in order to open trade with the Far East.
A million Christians and over 100-million Africans were enslaved by Islamic slave raiders during the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. What Stefan manages to do that most historians have not, is paint a picture of the past 200 years as a breathing spell for Europe, in which the millennia-long invasion of Europe by Islam stalled, only to be resumed a few years ago.
I highly recommend:
Harold Lamb’s Crusades for readability.
To the Shores of Tripoli by A. B. C. Whipple is a great nonfiction military adventure.
If you want to know what it was like to live under medieval Islamic rule, try The Jericho Bone by some nutty horror writer.
James,
Along these lines...Rodney Stark's "Gods Battalions: The Case for the Crusades" is a good read along these lines. Stark clearly has a pro-Christian axe to grind. That said. A well thought out list of Islamic atrocities and violations against non-Muslims (also he goes on an interesting side trip destroying the notion that the Islamic world was advanced scientifically) . All in all nice antidote to the whole Muhammad's people were just minding their own thing in the desert crap that Westerners have bought wholesale for the last 50 or so years. In many cases the crusaders were straight up scum. However "The Case for the Crusades" gives lie to the notion that Islam was/is like some sort of knitting circle.