Take a photo of a barcode or cover
otterno11 's review for:
The Templars and the Assassins: The Militia of Heaven
by James Wasserman
"The Templars and the Assassins: The Militia of Heaven," attempts to tell the story of these legendary religious orders, which still feature heavily in conspiracy lore and occult theory in popular culture (such as the popular "Assassins Creed" video game). I was interested in learning about them from the perspective of the esoteric and mythical, to come to a better understanding of where these stories originated, but author James Wasserman focuses more heavily on their known history and unfortunately it is all a little dull. Wasserman writes a standard treatise on Crusades history, explaining in rather disorganized chapters the religious and political worlds of Europe and the Middle East, and specifically the parallel development of the two religious “secret societies” of Christianity and Islam and their rises and falls. His historiography, though, I found a bit questionable, often referring to the debatable “dark ages” in his set up of the Crusades.
Alarm bells began to go off for me when Wasserman goes on odd tangents involving the “modern corporate-socialist state into which the United States is fast plunging,” or the “ethical degeneration of late Roman society presaged our modern plunge toward secular humanism and moral relativism.” For me, his historical interpretations must be taken with a grain of salt. Only a very little in the work regards the actual connections between the Templars and the Assassins and what, if any, influence they might have had upon each other or their respective cultures. There is a nice bibliography and appendices of period documents, however. Still, there are other, more accessible general works on both religious groups and the Crusades as a whole and I cannot recommend this book for either straight history or even as an entertaining speculation fest.
Alarm bells began to go off for me when Wasserman goes on odd tangents involving the “modern corporate-socialist state into which the United States is fast plunging,” or the “ethical degeneration of late Roman society presaged our modern plunge toward secular humanism and moral relativism.” For me, his historical interpretations must be taken with a grain of salt. Only a very little in the work regards the actual connections between the Templars and the Assassins and what, if any, influence they might have had upon each other or their respective cultures. There is a nice bibliography and appendices of period documents, however. Still, there are other, more accessible general works on both religious groups and the Crusades as a whole and I cannot recommend this book for either straight history or even as an entertaining speculation fest.