Crusaders in Current Events

If you and your family keep up with current events, you've probably noticed that Islamic terorists frequently refer to American soldiers and their allies as "Crusaders." Yes, the Crusades, part of current events! What are American schools teaching kids about the historical controversy regarding the crusades? Consider the essay "Crusade Propaganda," written by Thomas F. Madden, a professor of history at Saint Louis University (in St. Louis, Missouri), and coauthor of The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople (1997 by the University of Pennsylvania Press) and the author of A Concise History of the Crusades.
Madden writes, "Now put this down in your notebook, because it will be on the test: The crusades were in every way a defensive war. They were the West's belated response to the Muslim conquest of fully two-thirds of the Christian world. While the Arabs were busy in the seventh through the tenth centuries winning an opulent and sophisticated empire, Europe was defending itself against outside invaders and then digging out from the mess they left behind. Only in the eleventh century were Europeans able to take much notice of the East. The event that led to the crusades was the Turkish conquest of most of Christian Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The Christian emperor in Constantinople, faced with the loss of half of his empire, appealed for help to the rude but energetic Europeans. He got it. More than he wanted, in fact."
If you and your family are studying the history of the middle ages, it makes sense to include a unit study on the crusades. Like it or not, our enemies are still fighting against Christianity--not just against America. Learn more about how our nation's textbooks are distoring the truth about the crusades, at http://www.textbookleague.org/121hakm.htm.
Once again...and that's why we homeschool.