After reading the review I understand the basic premise of the author but I guess that without reading the book I won’t understand the tie between Mohammed and Charlemagne. I could see a direct relation between Mo and Charlemagne’s grandfather but other than a time shift of key events it still doesn’t seem to exactly fit. Given the politics and power structures of that millenia the crusades would have probably still failed even 400 years earlier.
which crusades?
there were five.
they all failed?
BullShiite
He argues that in the Merovingian period (500-751) and the years from the success of the Germanic invasion until Charlemagne that the empire survived in an uneasy union of the original peoples and the invaders and that only very gradually was there any noticeable decline in economy. Charlemagne, son of Pippin, became king in 768 upon the death of his father and inherited his father’s Roman policy. In 774 he not only again defeated a rising Lombard threat but declared himself their king. Charlemagne remained in northern Europe and gave the Lombards a significant degree of home rule. The Carolingian world gravitated toward the north and west, though it included Italy, and away from the (lost) Mediterranean.
On Dec. 25, 800 Charlemagne was crowned emperor of Christianity. This crowning was not quite on the Byzantine model. There the emperor was acclaimed by the people. Charlemagne was acclaimed by Rome. It was in the church’s acclamation, not the people of Europe in which his power rested.
By 812 Charlemagne concluded peace with Byzantium and he ceded Venice and Sicily, thus effectively creating an empire with no access to the Mediterranean.
“The Empire of Charlemagne was the critical point of the rupture by Islam, of the European equilibrium.”
“The Carolingian Empire, or rather, the Empire of Charlemagne, was the scaffolding of the Middle Ages. The State upon which it was founded was extremely weak and would presently crumble. But the Empire would survive as the higher unity of Western Christendom.” link