Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade » (Reprint)

James Reston. Jr. is the author of eleven previous books, including The Last Apocalypse and Galileo: A Life. He lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

James Reston, Jr., the author of Galileo and the critically lauded The Last Apocalypse, a stuningly original portrait of the Christian world at the turn of the first millennium, now recreates 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 contradictions as Reston examines the dark side of Richard's role as the leader of the blood-soaked Crusades, 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 united 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.

Thomas Jackson - Forbes

In this dual biography, historian James Reston, Jr. recounts the largest military endeavor of the Middle Ages, when Richard the Lionheart and Saladin squared off in the Holy Land for round three of the Crusades (1189-1192). The cast of characters includes the incomparably beautiful Eleanor of Aquitaine, queen in succession of both France and England; Philip II Augustus, the spineless, conniving king of France; and Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Em-peror, whose role was cut short when he fell in a shallow river in full armor and drowned. Richard and Saladin are west and east, chalk and cheese, gruel and couscous. While the former was dashing, ruthless and brave to the point of absurd-ity, the latter was humble, pious and relatively merciful towards those he vanquished. From both sides of the conflict, Reston describes Philip and Richard's siege of Acre, and Richard's subsequent unsuccessful march on Jerusalem. At Acre, a crusader was pierced by 50 arrows and set aflame before relinquishing a parapet, while on the plain of Sharon, a great Muslim warrior named el-Tawil struck off "many noses of unbelievers" before succumbing to the swarm. Reading this book, one sways between horror and exhilaration. The magnitude of human suffering is mind-boggling, but the warriors' adventures are the stuff of boyhood fantasy.