American History and the Crusades

I recently bought some college classes on MP3 (through The Great Courses) for my wife and me to listen to together. We bought American History, the Early Middle Ages and the Greek civilization (my wife and I have a continuing debate about whether the Greeks or Romans were better: she reminds me that the Greeks had creativity and brains, but I remind her that the Roman civilization conquered the Greeks, had great logistics and lasted for a very long time). Anyway, we listened to the first American History lecture and I came across a gem of a “big picture jewel.” The teacher was discussing how the Crusades taught the Europeans a variety of things, including how to send out big expeditions and the potential for trade. The Italians controlled the Med, and the Arabs controlled the land routes, so the Western Europeans were forced to go a different direction: by sea. The Portuguese went around Africa, so the Spanish were left with going west, which resulted in the famous expedition of 1492. And all of this because of the Crusades! Since I am intrigued with the Crusades (it is the clearest place where military history and church history collide) in a dark sort of way, this connection with American history made me all the more interested in that dark period known as the Crusades.

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