Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors

"In this fast-paced narrative of coexistence and warfare in the medieval Mediterranean, Brian A. Catlos shows how the language of religious strife has concealed the political and economic struggles that heralded modernity."—Thomas F. Glick, Professor of History, Boston University

"Through a series of illuminating vignettes, Brian A. Catlos provides new insights into the complex relations between Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the medieval Mediterranean. His lively narrative and command of the sources allow us to see the nature of both the antagonism and cooperation between the three groups. This is an excellent book and a wonderful portrait of an important aspect of Mediterranean society."—Teofilo F. Ruiz, Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles

"Brian A. Catlos takes us on a tour of a medieval Mediterranean world in which Muslims, Christians, and Jews all worship the same twin gods of power and wealth. They lived together, fought together, and traded together, saving religion for those Machiavellian moments when it was useful for pursuing politics or destroying rivals. Catlos's age of Crusade and jihad is not one of faith but of power and violence, in which people of all religions are intertwined in a vast Game of Thrones. The result is a vivid historical narrative, as well as a provocative allegory for the present."—David Nirenberg, Professor of Medieval History and Social Thought, University of Chicago

"Panoramic in its scope and precise in its observations, Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors will fully engage those new to the history of the crusading age and, at the same time, instruct those who know—or thought they knew—quite a bit about the period."—Philip Daileader, Associate Professor of History, William & Mary

"This compelling account of the Crusades era debunks the clash-of-civilizations paradigm in which the period is typically cast. Through vivid portraits of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim figures, Catlos depicts an era of interfaith coöperation and fluid identities. In Sicily, Christians prayed inside a mosque before a casket believed to contain the bones of Aristotle; the first analytical treatment of Jewish theology was written in Arabic; Roger II, the Christian king of Sicily, donned the silk and gem-studded regalia of the Islamic élite. Catlos does not overlook the violence of the period but argues that it was stoked more often by money and power than by religion and ideology."—The New Yorker

"Absorbing and illuminating, Infidel Kings and Unholy Warriors deepens our appreciation of an era that seems so improbable now: those centuries when Muslims, Jews, and Christians were twined in one another's destinies."—Tamim Ansary, author of West of Kabul, East of New York