The Assassins
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
Few medieval movements have seized the Western imagination quite like the Nizari Ismailis — the sect history would brand The Assassins. Bernard Lewis's landmark work chronicles the dramatic rise of this radical Shia Muslim order, founded in the mountain fortresses of eleventh-century Persia under the visionary and ruthless leadership of Hassan-i Sabbah. Far from the cartoonish villains of legend, Lewis presents a sophisticated political and religious movement that deployed calculated terror as a precision instrument against the Sunni Abbasid Caliphate and the Crusader kingdoms alike, reshaping the medieval Near East through fear and faith in equal measure. Lewis, one of the twentieth century's foremost scholars of Islamic history, argues compellingly that the Assassins were not mere murderers but ideological warriors whose methods anticipated the logic of modern political violence. His prose is lucid and authoritative, drawing on Arabic, Persian, and Syrian sources to dismantle centuries of myth and misinformation surrounding the sect. The Assassins stands as an essential work of historical scholarship that leaves the reader questioning just how thin the line truly is between fanaticism and conviction.
Author: Bernard Lewis
Format: Paperback
Genre: History
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
Few medieval movements have seized the Western imagination quite like the Nizari Ismailis — the sect history would brand The Assassins. Bernard Lewis's landmark work chronicles the dramatic rise of this radical Shia Muslim order, founded in the mountain fortresses of eleventh-century Persia under the visionary and ruthless leadership of Hassan-i Sabbah. Far from the cartoonish villains of legend, Lewis presents a sophisticated political and religious movement that deployed calculated terror as a precision instrument against the Sunni Abbasid Caliphate and the Crusader kingdoms alike, reshaping the medieval Near East through fear and faith in equal measure. Lewis, one of the twentieth century's foremost scholars of Islamic history, argues compellingly that the Assassins were not mere murderers but ideological warriors whose methods anticipated the logic of modern political violence. His prose is lucid and authoritative, drawing on Arabic, Persian, and Syrian sources to dismantle centuries of myth and misinformation surrounding the sect. The Assassins stands as an essential work of historical scholarship that leaves the reader questioning just how thin the line truly is between fanaticism and conviction.