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Doomed to Repeat
Jun. 9th, 2008 12:57 pmFor Netflix I rented an old set of BBC/History Channel documentaries about the Crusades. They're pretty awesome, what with them being presented by Terry Jones. It's been awhile since I saw these, but they've held up pretty well I think.
One of the things that I love about Terry Jones narrating is that he really captures the absurdity inherent in history. (Not that you could expect anything else) He explains how the first two waves of crusaders came to the Holy Land and promptly started attacking Christian strongholds. And how they once laid siege to a town with nothing but sheep inside. All of the people had already snuck out.
And one of my favorites, where the ruler in Damascus was trying to keep Saladin from taking over. So he allied himself with the Crusaders who....uh...promptly attacked him instead of Saladin.
It really makes me wonder what the documentaries 600 years from now will say about US relations in the Middle East.
One of the things that I love about Terry Jones narrating is that he really captures the absurdity inherent in history. (Not that you could expect anything else) He explains how the first two waves of crusaders came to the Holy Land and promptly started attacking Christian strongholds. And how they once laid siege to a town with nothing but sheep inside. All of the people had already snuck out.
And one of my favorites, where the ruler in Damascus was trying to keep Saladin from taking over. So he allied himself with the Crusaders who....uh...promptly attacked him instead of Saladin.
It really makes me wonder what the documentaries 600 years from now will say about US relations in the Middle East.
