[Jeff Lebowski]

As I'm sure you can appreciate it is difficult to discuss complex historical issues and be concise, especially considering Frankopan's book is roughly 650 pages. So for brevity I'll add this video which covers a lot of the ideas he was writing about but try and address your questions as well.

For me, being born, raised and educated in the west I had a lot of the assumptions and biases Frankopan discusses in that video.

The west inheirited the tradition of greeks, romans and all these other civilisations were static.

This was not what I was taught. I never learned about non European sources and their perspectives. Perhaps you did but for those that had similar education to me it may be a similar shock to learn history from the others pov.

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I'm not disputing that Europe had fewer periods of peace than Asia. I'm pointing out that there were prolonged periods of peace in Eastern civilizations because states were more centralized and their hierarchies were locked down. The more powerful and autocratic the state, the less internal violence there is in a society. It's not a matter of culture or morality.

You seem to imply that the west (which at times were ruled by kingdoms and churches) were not autocratic and locked down. How is it that only eastern civilizations with their monarchies were autocratic and had less internal violence? Curious as to why the difference?

And those trade routes were notoriously plagued with lawlessness and banditry once they passed out of sight of a city. One of the reasons goods that passed between Europe and East Asia were so valuable is because of the extraordinary danger involved in the commerce.

Sure there were bandits that tried to pull heists on caravans but that is not even in the same universe let alone ballpark for the state sponsored theft by Europeans (not all drawn from Frankopan below). Also, I am of belief it was the scarcity & quality of the goods that reflected in the price and not so much the danger to get it to the west.

When Columbus (he was trying to be a crusader himself but ended up in the Americas) and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:

They ... brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells. They willingly traded everything they owned (yet europeans felt they could kill them and just take it)... . They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome features.... They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no iron. Their spears are made of cane... . They would make fine servants.... With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.

Las Casas tells how the Spaniards "grew more conceited every day" and after a while refused to walk any distance. They "rode the backs of Indians if they were in a hurry" or were carried on hammocks by Indians running in relays. "In this case they also had Indians carry large leaves to shade them from the sun and others to fan them with goose wings."

Total control led to total cruelty. The Spaniards "thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades." Las Casas tells how "two of these so-called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys."

What did people in Spain get out of all that death and brutality visited on the Indians of the Americas? For a brief period in history, there was the glory of a Spanish Empire in the Western Hemisphere. As Hans Koning sums it up in his book Columbus: His Enterprise:

For all the gold and silver stolen and shipped to Spain did not make the Spanish people richer. It gave their kings an edge in the balance of power for a time, a chance to hire more mercenary soldiers for their wars. They ended up losing those wars anyway, and all that was left was a deadly inflation, a starving population, the rich richer, the poor poorer, and a ruined peasant class.

Europeans in North America?
So the English set fire to the wigwams of the village. By their own account: "The Captain also said, We must Burn Them; and immediately stepping into the Wigwam ... brought out a Fire Brand, and putting it into the Matts with which they were covered, set the Wigwams on Fire." William Bradford, in his History of the Plymouth Plantation written at the time, describes John Mason's raid on the Pequot village:

Those that scaped the fire were slaine with the sword; some hewed to peeces, others rune throw with their rapiers, so as they were quickly dispatchte, and very few escaped. It was conceived they thus destroyed about 400 at this time. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fyer, and the streams of blood quenching the same, and horrible was the stincke and sente there of, but the victory seemed a sweete sacrifice, and they gave the prayers thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to inclose their enemise in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory over so proud and insulting an enimie.

And where do the Mongols, Turks, etc. fit into this peaceful exchange among different cultures? The Mongol invasions of China and the Middle East were, on a per capita basis, the most bloody episodes man has ever inflicted on man, and Asia has been the locale of most of the worst violent catastrophes in history.

I never wrote peaceful exchange (not sure if you're being sarcastic) but what I did state from Frankopan was even the Mongols used co-operation and compromise to sustain their central command. Yes they were brutal but seemingly unlike Europeans there was long periods of peace.

Also from previous post the state sponsored theft allowed more spices, silks and goods to be purchased from the Turks etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._by_death_toll

I never suggested the crusaders were gallant knights. They were mostly brutes looking for land and loot. That doesn't make the people they were fighting noble - after all, they had conquered that same patch of territory only a few generations before. Is religious jihad a more honourable motive for conquest and subjugation than larceny?

Very large topic so again I'll take the easy way out and leave it up to the historian who wrote the book for



Looking for land and loot?
Foucher de Chartres (c. 1059 – c. 1128 A.D.) was a priest and participated in the First Crusade and he wrote a chronicle of it in Latin; he participated in the massacre of Jerusalem; he writes the following: (... Some Arabs fled and sought refuge in the Tower of David and the Temple of the Lord built by Solomon, but they were savagely attacked and brutally murdered by our men; they were not spared the swords of our men; one's feet and ankles sank into pools of blood of slaughtered people; no one was spared, even women and children; our infantry and cavaliers ripped open the bellies of the corpses of Muslims to see if they deceived them by swallowing gold coins or not while they were alive! Many corpses were gathered, burned, and turned into ashes by those who seek gold coins ... No one was spared from being massacred even those who implored for mercy; all Arabs of Jerusalem were put to death ... After the massacre, our men robbed all the houses ... Many of the penniless men became rich by confiscating houses and all possessions found in them ...).

The anonymous author of the book about the First Crusade titled "The Deeds of the Franks", or Gesta Francorum in Latin, writes the following: (... Our men chased the infidels and massacred them until they reached the Temple of Solomon; the massacre committed in the Temple was so violent and savage that our men waded up to their ankles in blood ... The Temple was flooded by the blood of massacred Arabs ... Muslim men and women who sought refuge in the roof of the Temple were beheaded by the swords of our men; some Arabs threw themselves from the roof and fell dead ... Our men held a council and they were commanded to pay alms and to pray to the Lord God to make Him choose the king of Jerusalem ... they were commanded to throw all corpses of Arabs outside Jerusalem as the stink was frightening; all streets of Jerusalem were filled with corpses .... The corpses were piled in huge heaps as big as houses ... No one saw or heard of such a number of corpses of the heathens; the heaps were like pyramids; they were burned outside Jerusalem ... No one, except the Lord God, knows their number ...).

(... women were killed by being stabbed with swords and spears; babies were snatched by their legs from the breasts of their mothers to be thrown from the walls or to have their heads smashed by pillars ...).


The more we try to turn history into a morality play, the less we understand. Humans don't conquer and massacre and enslave because their particular culture is morally tainted. They conquer and massacre and enslave because they're humans.

Nobility? Morality?

When the Crusaders inside Jerusalem realized the fact that the military troops led by Saladin were about to attack Jerusalem, they requested safety, security, and negotiations; this meant they surrendered and gave the city to Saladin in return for their leaving the city in peace; when Saladin heard this offer from a delegation of Crusaders, at first, he refused as he desired to take revenge against them since they massacred most dwellers of Jerusalem and enslaved many women and children when they conquered Jerusalem.

There were 60000 European men in Jerusalem and so many women and children; all of them left Jerusalem, along with their precious possessions and money, in peace and security. A wealthy woman among the Crusaders had huge loads of precious stones and jewels and many servants, gentlewomen, and male and female slaves; she requested peace and security from the Arabs under Saladin to leave the city along with her possessions and people; she was escorted by Arab soldiers in peace out of Jerusalem and no one dared to attack or rob her. The great patriarch of the Crusaders went out of Jerusalem along with his wealth, huge amounts of money, and Saladin and his men never confiscated anything from the patriarch, despite his advisors who urged Saladin to confiscate such money; Saladin insisted on never to act treacherously against any of the Crusaders who left Jerusalem; his men took the 10 dinars from the patriarch and he left in peace within a caravan of his men protected by Saladin's soldiers until the caravan of the patriarch reached Tyre. Many of the penniless men and women among Crusaders were pardoned and allowed to leave (along with their children) without paying the tribute to the Arabs after they implored Saladin for mercy. The daughters of rulers left Jerusalem in peace along with their caravans of possessions, servants, and male and female slaves.

After Sultan al-Kamil defeated the Franks during the Crusades, Oliverus Scholasticus praised the Islamic laws of war, commenting on how al-Kamil supplied the defeated Frankish army with food:[72]

Who could doubt that such goodness, friendship and charity come from God? Men whose parents, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, had died in agony at our hands, whose lands we took, whom we drove naked from their homes, revived us with their own food when we were dying of hunger and showered us with kindness even when we were in their power.[51]

Unique in what way? That strip of land, the Levant, has been conquered (with all the massacre, rape, and despoliation that entails) by Assyrians, Hittites, Israelites, Egyptians, the Sea Peoples, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Sassanids, Arabs, and Ottomans.

Well all those civilizations you listed who fought and brutally killed in the Levant lived in close proximity. The crusaders came from a call from their christian brothers in the east but killed them too!

The very first group of the soldiers of the Popular Crusade was led by Walter the Penniless (orWalter Sans Avoir ); he led his followers, who were mostly peasants, and they began looting and stealing in Bulgaria, but Bulgarian soldiers resisted them; the soldiers/peasants led by Walter the Penniless entered into Hungary and continued robbing and killing the Christians there and they marched until they reached the walls of Constantinople in July, 1069 A.D. The Byzantine emperor, Alexios I, allowed them to wait by the walls of Constantinople to wait for the troops led by Peter the Hermit.

The troops led by Peter the Hermit did not differ from the groups led by Walter the Penniless in terms of formation and unruliness; his soldiers had insatiable desire for looting, pillaging, destroying, and massacring. The troops of Peter the Hermit, about 40000 persons, consisted ont criminals, unemployed, prostitutes, poor peasants, and some cavaliers on horseback. On their way to Constantinople, the troops of Peter the Hermit attacked a Hungarian Christian city, Semlin, which was located within the borders with the Byzantine empire. The massacre of Semlin was instigated by peter the Hermit; 4000 people were killed in this city and the villages around it. Another massacre was committed in the city of Nish (in today's Serbia).

Not to mention the jews they killed in Rhineland on the way (or the muslims in the holy land).

But sure, those other groups brutally killed too, women & children I'm sure. So that's not really unique. How about the cannibalism?

In Ma’arra our troops boiled pagan adults in cooking pots; they impaled children on spits# and devoured them grilled.

– Confession by Franjish chronicler Radulph of Caen

Some sources claim that there were other cases of cannibalism during the First Crusade, which the article is quite supportive of. Several later chronicles, including William of Tyre, place acts of cannibalism at Antioch and there is some contemporary mention of the need to avoid cannibalism during the siege.

It's just the total depravity and sheer frequency of that depravity that is consistent with wherever Europeans encountered the other.