An Ungodly War: the Sack of Constantinople and the Fourth Crusade. From: Church History | Date: March 1, 2002| Author: Jordan, William Chester | COPYRIGHT 2002 American Society of Church History. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

By W. B. Bartlett. Phoenix Mill, U.K.: Sutton, 2000. xviii + 229 pp. $29.95 cloth.

Greeks, the author of the book under review here tells the reader, are "[b]y nature a pessimistic people" (152). If one ignores statements like these, what is left is a rousing narrative of the Fourth Crusade, the crusade that involved the conquest of Constantinople in 1204 and the establishment of the Latin Empire, ruled by Franks until 1261. All the familiar actors are here, sketched wit...