The Fourth Crusade
One of the main causes of the rift between Eastern Europe and Western Europe can be found in the Story of the Fourth Crusade, a book I read trembling with excitement … and nausea. For various reasons, among which I would include guilt and a reluctance to acknowledge how much Western Europe owes to Eastern Europe, the history of the Byzantine Empire has been ignored in the West. The Fourth Crusade (one of those crusades which wasn’t a crusade at all) ended up not with the recovery of the Holy Land from the infidels, but the destruction of a Christian (nominally Christian anyway) empire that had buffered Western Europe from barbarians in the East for centuries. More about that on a different day.
Bradford became a favourite of mine after I read his biography of Hannibal a few years ago. Here’s all the info I’ve been able to glean about him from the internet and my book covers.
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