James Waterson
Autor von Defending Heaven: China's Mongol Wars, 1209-1370
Über den Autor
James Waterson is a graduate of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and received his Master's Degree from the University of Dundee. The author of a number of books, he travelled and worked in the United States and China for a number of years but can now be found mehr anzeigen more commonly looking for employment in the Middle East, Africa or Switzerland. When he has enough money in his pocket he hides out in Tuscany and Central Europe. weniger anzeigen
Werke von James Waterson
Getagged
Wissenswertes
- Gebräuchlichste Namensform
- Waterson, James
- Geschlecht
- male
- Land (für Karte)
- Czech Republic
- Berufe
- author
Mitglieder
Rezensionen
Statistikseite
- Werke
- 7
- Mitglieder
- 145
- Beliebtheit
- #142,479
- Bewertung
- 4.2
- Rezensionen
- 1
- ISBNs
- 22
- Sprachen
- 2
OK, got all that? The Assassins were Shiite Sevener Ismaili Naziris. Their choice of assassination as a method was developed around several things – they were a small group and thus could not field armies; they had very secure local strongholds; members of the group were fanatically loyal to the leader; they excelled at infiltration tactics, often becoming trusted guards of their targets until it was time to do them in; and the Islamic world was so unstable that the death of a single ruler could send one of the states into chaos until potential successors sorted things out (the same instability made the First Crusade relatively easy for the Christians). The Assassins gradually extended their political dominion until the controlled a narrow strip of mountainous land extending from Persia to Syria; it’s the Syrian branch the Crusaders met up with; at first the Assassins were friendly with the Crusaders, and vice versa, under “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” principle. This didn’t last; eventually the Assassins were just as likely to do away with a Christian ruler as a Moslem one.
The Assassin’s eventual downfall came when they ran into a people just as ruthless as they were – the Mongols. Mongol forces, assisted by Chinese siege engineers, reduced one Assassin fortress after another, and the traditional Assassin infiltration methods didn’t work very well with a people of physically different appearance. The Head of the Assassins did dispatch a force of over 400 to Mongolia, disguised as a trading caravan, to assassinate Mongke Khan – they failed (it isn’t quite sure how). The Assassins eventually submitted to the Abbasids and took to taking jobs for hire rather than for religious regions; ironically, their descendents, the Ismailis, are now considered the most peaceful and tolerant group in Islam.
Author James Waterson does an extremely good job with this complicated story. There are chronological and genealogical tables to help the reader keep track of the players – obviously a fairly difficult job – and maps depicting the scene of the action. Waterson displays some sympathy with the Assassins, pointing out that they never attacked women, children, or ordinary people – only political figures hostile to their sect and only then when a murder could actually make a difference. The subtext, of course, is that the Assassins never had the strength to undertake conventional military action. It’s instructive to read about how much religious – or ostensibly religious – disunity there was in the Islamic world, with dozens of competing sects more or less hostile to each other. There are, of course, stinging parallels with modern Islam and the tacit or overt acceptance of terrorist acts because Islam isn’t strong enough to do anything else; conversely, many of the West’s tactics against terrorist groups are reminiscent of the Assassins – if you kill off a leader, somebody else will come along eventually, but in the meantime you’ll have some breathing space. The Israelis seem to use this technique with considerable success.… (mehr)