God's Battalions
The Case for the Crusades
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God's Battalions
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Narrated by:
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Bob Souer
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By:
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Rodney Stark
About this listen
A respected and controversial scholar argues that the Crusades were a justified war waged against Muslim terror and aggression
This book takes on the current vogue in liberal thinking to argue that, in fact, the Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts. The Crusaders were not barbarians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. They sincerely believed that they served in God’s Battalions.
In the wake of many recent books justifying Muslim holy wars by criticizing the historic use of violence by Christians, Stark presents the other side of the story. Drawing upon a wide variety of sources, Stark argues the facts and figures about why and how Christianity attempted to secure the Holy Lands and protect the safety of Christian pilgrims.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2009 Rodney Stark (P)2025 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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- By: Thomas Asbridge
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 25 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,060
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,601
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,579
The Crusades is an authoritative, accessible single-volume history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land in the Middle Ages. Thomas Asbridge - a renowned historian who writes with "maximum vividness" (Joan Acocella, The New Yorker) - covers the years 1095 to 1291 in this big, ambitious, listenable account of one of the most fascinating periods in history.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Comprehensive
- By Tad Davis on 10-04-16
By: Thomas Asbridge
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Sword and Scimitar
- Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West
- By: Raymond Ibrahim, Victor Davis Hanson - foreword
- Narrated by: John McLain
- Length: 14 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 621
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 557
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Story5 out of 5 stars 554
The West and Islam - the sword and scimitar - have clashed since the 17th century, when, according to Muslim tradition, the Roman emperor rejected Prophet Muhammad's order to abandon Christianity and convert to Islam, unleashing a centuries-long jihad on Christendom. Sword and Scimitar chronicles the decisive battles that arose from this ages-old Islamic jihad, beginning with the first major Islamic attack on Christian land in 636.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent read
- By Susan Stone on 01-25-19
By: Raymond Ibrahim, and others
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How the West Won
- The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity
- By: Rodney Stark
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 15 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 551
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 485
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 482
Modernity developed only in the West - in Europe and North America. Nowhere else did science and democracy arise; nowhere else was slavery outlawed. Only Westerners invented chimneys, musical scores, telescopes, eyeglasses, pianos, electric lights, aspirin, and soap. The question is, why? Unfortunately, that question has become so politically incorrect that most scholars avoid it. But acclaimed author Rodney Stark provides the answers in this sweeping new look at Western civilization.
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4 out of 5 stars
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We all have a bias
- By Adam Shields on 04-21-15
By: Rodney Stark
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Crusaders
- The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands
- By: Dan Jones
- Narrated by: Dan Jones
- Length: 16 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 754
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 662
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 659
For more than 1,000 years, Christians and Muslims lived side by side, sometimes at peace and sometimes at war. When Christian armies seized Jerusalem in 1099, they began the most notorious period of conflict between the two religions. Depending on who you ask, the fall of the holy city was either an inspiring legend or the greatest of horrors. In Crusaders, Dan Jones interrogates the many sides of the larger story, charting a deeply human and avowedly pluralist path through the crusading era.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Gripping but not tidy
- By Tad Davis on 01-06-20
By: Dan Jones
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Magna Carta: The Making and Legacy of the Great Charter
- By: Dan Jones
- Narrated by: Dan Jones
- Length: 3 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 7
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 6
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Story5 out of 5 stars 6
On a summer's day in 1215 a beleaguered English monarch met a group of disgruntled barons in a meadow by the river Thames named Runnymede. Beset by foreign crisis and domestic rebellion, King John was fast running out of options. On 15 June he reluctantly agreed to fix his regal seal to a document that would change the world.
By: Dan Jones
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Cities of God
- The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome
- By: Rodney Stark
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 29
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 27
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 27
How did the preaching of a peasant carpenter from Galilee spark a movement that would grow to include over two billion followers? Who listened to this "good news," and who ignored it? Where did Christianity spread, and how? Based on quantitative data and the latest scholarship, preeminent scholar and journalist Rodney Stark presents new and startling information about the rise of the early church, overturning many prevailing views of how Christianity grew through time to become the largest religion in the world.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A coherent, compelling, and challenging account
- By Paul Adams on 06-08-20
By: Rodney Stark
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Not Stolen
- The Truth About European Colonialism in the New World
- By: Jeff Fynn-Paul
- Narrated by: Paul Maitrejean
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 12
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 11
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Story5 out of 5 stars 11
A renowned historian debunks current distortion and myths about European colonialism in the New World and restores much needed balance to our understanding of the past.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Reasoned balanced history
- By 1698 Huguenot Descent on 03-09-25
By: Jeff Fynn-Paul
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In God's Path
- The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire
- By: Robert G. Hoyland
- Narrated by: Peter Ganim
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 235
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 205
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Story4 out of 5 stars 207
In just over a hundred years - from the death of Muhammad in 632 to the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate in 750 - the followers of the Prophet swept across the whole of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. Their armies threatened states as far flung as the Franks in Western Europe and the Tang Empire in China. The conquered territory was larger than the Roman Empire at its greatest expansion, and it was claimed for the Arabs in roughly half the time.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Islamic conquest history from the outside
- By SAMA on 01-22-15
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The New Concise History of the Crusades
- Critical Issues in World and International History
- By: Thomas F. Madden
- Narrated by: Claton Butcher
- Length: 10 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 179
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 163
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 164
How have the crusades contributed to Islamist rage and terrorism today? Were the crusades the Christian equivalent of modern jihad? In this sweeping yet crisp history, Thomas F. Madden offers a brilliant and compelling narrative of the crusades and their contemporary relevance.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Inexcusable!
- By MK Miller on 10-16-14
By: Thomas F. Madden
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The Road to Jerusalem
- Crusades Trilogy Series, Book 1
- By: Jan Guillou
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 159
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 142
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 142
Born in 1150 to a noble Swedish family and coming of age at a monastery under the tutelage of a Cistercian monk and a former Knight Templar, young Arn Magnusson is sent to fulfill his destiny beyond the cloister walls. But the world awaiting him is a place at odds with his monastic ways. And when the murder of a king engulfs Western Götaland into a whirlwind of intrigue and ruthless power plays, headstrong and naive Arn is forced to leave the woman he loves behind and take up arms to battle infidels in the Holy Land.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Went looking for trashy historical fiction...
- By Anonymous User on 02-01-22
By: Jan Guillou
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The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise
- Muslims, Christians, and Jews Under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain
- By: Dario Fernandez Morera
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 491
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 426
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 430
Scholars, journalists, and politicians uphold Muslim-ruled medieval Spain - "al-Andalus" - as a multicultural paradise, a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived in harmony. There is only one problem with this widely accepted account: It is a myth. In this groundbreaking book, Northwestern University scholar Darío Fernández-Morera tells the full story of Islamic Spain. As professors, politicians, and pundits continue to celebrate Islamic Spain for its "multiculturalism" and "diversity", Fernández-Morera sets the record straight.
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5 out of 5 stars
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I should have known better all along.
- By David on 07-31-16
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Chain of Fire
- Campaigning in Egypt and the Sudan, 1882-98
- By: Peter Hart
- Narrated by: Graham Mack
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2
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Performance3 out of 5 stars 2
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2
In the 1880s, control over northeastern Africa was a political minefield into which Prime Minister Gladstone did not want to step—until his emissary Charles Gordon was besieged in Khartoum, and the city became the focal point for war. It was the height of European colonialism. Injustices were administered, bloody battles fought, and civilians caught in the crossfire. Among the British officers were figures who would later adopt starring roles in the First World War, such as Egyptian Army sapper Captain Herbert Kitchener.
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4 out of 5 stars
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adequate book with heinous narration
- By TedJameson on 05-23-25
By: Peter Hart
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Into the Ice
- The Northwest Passage, the Polar Sun, and a 175-Year-Old Mystery
- By: Mark Synnott
- Narrated by: Mark Deakins
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 17
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 16
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 16
New York Times bestselling author Mark Synnott has climbed with Alex Honnold. He’s scaled Mount Everest. He's pioneered big-wall first ascents, including the north-west face of the mile-high Great Trango Tower, and skied monster first descents. But in 2022, he realized there was a dream he’d yet to achieve: to sail the Northwest Passage in his own boat—a feat only four hundred or so sailors have ever accomplished—and in doing so, try to solve the mystery of what happened to legendary nineteenth-century explorer Sir John Franklin and his ships, HMS Erebus and Terror.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Awesome read
- By Amazon Customer on 06-05-25
By: Mark Synnott
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Medicine River
- A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools
- By: Mary Annette Pember
- Narrated by: Erin Tripp
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 12
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 12
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 12
A sweeping and deeply personal account of Native American boarding schools in the United States, and the legacy of abuse wrought by them in an attempt to destroy Native culture and life.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Medicine River really brought a lot of feelings to the surface from my own experience with my family.🪶💔🥀
- By Nokomii on 05-16-25