The Crusades

"Everything is here: the crusades to the Holy Land, and against the Albigensians, the Moors, the pagans in Eastern Europe, the Turks, and the enemies of the popes. Riley-Smith writes in a beautiful, lucid prose packed with facts and action,"---Choice. A reliable one-volume summary. 302 pages, softcover. Yale University.

With flair and originality, Christopher Tyerman presents a clear and lively discussion of the Crusades, bringing together issues of colonialism, cultural exchange, economic exploitation, and the relationship between past and present. He considers the effects of the Crusades on ordinary life in Western Europe, and the parts played by ordinary men and women in the conflict, and explores the term "Crusade" for contemporary political ends. Whether the Crusades are regarded as the most romantic of Christian expeditions, or the last of the barbarian invasions, they have fascinated generations ever since, and their legacy of ideas and imagery has resonated through the centuries, inspiring Hollywood movies and great works of literature.

St. Francis of Assisi is know to many as a lover of animals and a caretaker of creation, but unfortunately little else. One of the most overlooked moments in Francis' life however, was his encounter with an Islamic Sultan during the fifth Crusade. In 1219, Francis and his brothers crossed into Egypt in order to gain an audience with the Sultan Malik Al-Kamil. Impressed by his bravery, Al-Kamil allowed Francis to preach the message of Christ to his Muslim subjects.

At Moson, the river Danube ran red with blood. At Antioch, the Crusaders--their saddles freshly decorated with sawed-off heads--indiscriminately clogged the streets with the bodies of eastern Christians and Turks. At Ma'arra, they cooked children on spits and ate them. By the time the Crusaders reached Jerusalem, their quest--and their violence--had become distinctly otherworldly: blood literally ran shin-deep through the streets as the Crusaders overran the sacred city.

In The First Crusade, Thomas Asbridge offers a gripping account of a titanic three-year adventure filled with miraculous victories, greedy princes, and barbarity on a vast scale. Beginning with the electrifying speech delivered by Pope Urban II on the last Tuesday of November in the year 1095, readers will follow the more than 100,000 men who mobilized in Europe (where great waves of anti-Semitism resulted in the deaths of thousands of Jews), to their arrival in Constanstinople, an exotic, opulent city--ten times the size of any city in Europe--that bedazzled the Europeans.

In God's Battalions, Rodney Stark argues that the medieval Crusades were not waged in order to gain land, steal money, or to win converts as popularly believed today. Instead, Stark suggests that the Crusades were foremost a military response to unwarranted aggression by expanding Turkish invaders. By looking at the history of the seven major Crusades from 1095 to 1291, Stark argues that the crusaders launched their campaign because of extensive Islamic provocation after centuries of repeated attempts to colonize the West.

"There is a gaping chasm between myth and reality. Leading churchmen, scholars in other fields, and the general public hold to a caricature of the Crusades created by a pox of modern ideologies. If that chasm is ever to be bridged, it will be with well-written and powerful books such as this,"---First Things. 136 pages, softcover. Columbia University.

A brilliantly cohesive look at the Medieval World, readers will re-discover history from a linear, detailed, global scope. Moving from kingdom to kingdom, each chapter includes a timeline and the beginning of each chapter is labeled with the years it covers. Integrating dates and names with the information that breathes life into facts, the narrative flows easily between marriages made, treaties forged, wars waged, and the trials and tribulations that came with defending land and honor in the Medieval Age. 746 pages, indexed, hardcover with dust jacket.

The famous novelist de Wohl presents a stimulating historical novel about the great St. Thomas Aquinas, set against the violent background of the Italy of the Crusades. He tells the intriguing story of St. Thomas who defied his illustrious, prominent family's ambition for him to have great power in the Church by taking a vow of poverty and joining the Dominicans.

The expulsion of the Christians from the Holy Land in 1291 was far from being the end of the crusading movement. Crusades continued for three centuries over a vast area stretching form Morocco to Russia, and played an important role in the politics and society of late medieval Europe. Norman Housley's comprehensive survey is the first to focus in depth on the later crusades.

"A first-rate, scholarly, up-to-date, and highly readable survey of the entire crusading movement, overall perhaps less entertaining and less inspiring than Runciman, but more balanced and, as a synthesis of two generations of further research, often much better informed,"---New York Review of Books. 1040 pages, softcover. Harvard University.

The second edition of The Crusades, for long standard work on the subject, has been extensively rewritten to take account of the latest research and new interpretations. Crusading was a central theme in the early medieval European history, and the book covers all the expeditoins which took place between the First Crusade in 1096 and the final retreat from Palestine in 1291.

Intriguing and entertaining, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes is a vivid portrait of a society nearly destroyed by internal conflict and shaken by a traumatic encounter with an alien culture. Maalouf offers fascinating insights into the historical forces that even today shape Arab and Islamic consciousness.

This stirring novel is set in the climactic months before the opening of the Third Crusade, called the Kings' Crusade. The Brethren is a classic tale of love and chivalry, unfolding amidst the touching story of two English knights who are in love with the same maiden. The devotion of these men is tested when their beloved is carried away against her will to Palestine and eventually to the court of the famous Muslim leader, Saladin.