Jennifer Orkin Lewis

4/5. Finished Friday 13 April, 2018.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Lawrence Wright (2006)

A narrative history of the rise of Al Qaeda and the consequences for the world.

I read this book after I’d seen the recent television drama based on it. They cover substantially different ground, with the book rooted firmly in the origins and history of the group rather than in the few years preceding 9/11. It focuses quite intensively on Ayman al Zawahiri, whose struggle against the Egyptian government led to his eventual exile in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden, by contrast is – if not quite a bit player – then certainly a peripheral and rather transparent figure whose commitment to revolution arrives very late and in a surprisingly hesitant fashion – but is then absolutely decisive in both the tactics and strategy of the fight against the US and its allies. Altogether a fascinating cast of characters,

5/5. Finished Wednesday 11 April, 2018.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Neil Gaiman (2017)

A re-telling of some of the core Norse legends by a master of science fiction. Gaiman’s drawn heavily on Norse mythology in his “Sandman” series, especially in Season of Mists. But he does a fantastic job of rendering the stories in prose too, with a carefully chosen selection and a voice that’s perfectly pitched: not trying to be modern, but not being self-consciously archaic or imitative either. In many ways the only shame is that it’s too little taken from such a large body of possible tales.

5/5. Finished Tuesday 27 March, 2018.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Dan Jones (2017)

A narrative history of the Order of the Poor Knights of the Temple (to give them their full name). In less than a century the Templars went from nothing, to the most powerful military and commercial order in Europe, and then back to nothing, being destroyed for their money.

That they could disappear so completely is, as Jones points out, one of the reasons why they’ve given rise to so much fanciful speculation in the eight centuries since: how could an order of warrior knights allow themselves to be rounded up and (in some cases) burned? Wouldn’t they have fought, or at least gone underground? Jones makes a convincing case for the fact that the Western half of the Order were mainly farmers and administrators rather than knights per se, and may never have expected to be so thoroughly and ruthlessly persecuted as they in fact were. He supports his case by the fact that the Knights Hospitaller, a contemporary and equally powerful Order, were left unmolested largely because they had a secure military base on Rhodes from which they could have resisted attempts to suppress them (and indeed have survived as a sovereign nation recognised by international law ever since).

The truth is a lot more compelling than any pseudo-history, and illuminates the shifting alliances and power politics of thirteenth century Europe very clearly. It also shows how fragile the whole crusader expedition to the Holy Land (Outremer) was in reality, being constantly in need or reinforcement from a distance and at a constant disadvantage to the Muslim armies fighting closer to home, albeit often with the same degree of internal politics and variable levels of support.

4/5. Finished Saturday 24 March, 2018.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)