A major new history of the Crusades with an unprecedented wide scope, told in a tableau of portraits of people on all sides of the wars, from the author of Powers and Thrones.
For more than one thousand years, Christians and Muslims lived side by side, sometimes at peace and sometimes at war. When Christian armies seized Jerusalem in 1099, they began the most notorious period of conflict between the two religions. Depending on who you ask, the fall of the holy city was either an inspiring legend or the greatest of horrors. In Crusaders, Dan Jones interrogates the many sides of the larger story, charting a deeply human and avowedly pluralist path through the crusading era.
Expanding the usual timeframe, Jones looks to the roots of Christian-Muslim relations in the eighth century and tracks the influence of crusading to present day. He widens the geographical focus to far-flung regions home to so-called enemies of the Church, including Spain, North Africa, southern France, and the Baltic states. By telling intimate stories of individual journeys, Jones illuminates these centuries of war not only from the perspective of popes and kings, but from Arab-Sicilian poets, Byzantine princesses, Sunni scholars, Shi'ite viziers, Mamluk slave soldiers, Mongol chieftains, and barefoot friars.
Crusading remains a rallying call to this day, but its role in the popular imagination ignores the cooperation and complicated coexistence that were just as much a feature of the period as warfare. The age-old relationships between faith, conquest, wealth, power, and trade meant that crusading was not only about fighting for the glory of God, but also, among other earthly reasons, about gold. In this richly dramatic narrative that gives voice to sources usually pushed to the margins, Dan Jones has written an authoritative survey of the holy wars with global scope and human focus.
ISBN-13: 9780143108979
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication Date: 10-06-2020
Pages: 464
Product Dimensions: 8.30(w) x 5.40(h) x 1.10(d)
Dan Jones is the New York Times bestselling author of The Templars, The Plantagenets, Wars of the Roses, and Magna Carta. He wrote and presented the popular Netflix series Secrets of Great British Castles and appeared alongside George R.R. Martin in the official HBO film exploring the real history behind Game of Thrones.
Table of Contents
List of Maps xiii
Major Characters xv
Introduction xxxiii
Part I Trial by Ordeal
1 The Count and the Imam 3
2 Poets and Party Kings 11
3 Empire Under Siege 21
4 Deus Vult! 30
5 The Preacher's Tale 42
6 March of the Princes 54
7 The Longest Winter 68
8 Jerusalem 82
9 Dividing the Spoils 97
Part II Kingdom of Heaven
10 Sigurd Jerusalemfarer 109
11 Fields of Blood 121
12 A New Knighthood 134
13 Melisende the Magnificent 146
14 The Swords of Our Fathers 158
15 Converted or Deleted 168
16 History Repeating 182
17 The Race for Egypt 196
18 Because of Our Sins 210
Part III The Harvest of the Earth
19 Lionesses and Lionhearts 227
20 Consumed by Fire 243
21 Enemies Within 262
22 The River of Paradise 278
23 Immutator Mundi 295
24 Khans and Kings 311
25 The Enemy from Hell 326
26 Fragments and Dreams 342
27 Brave New Worlds 354
Epilogue: Crusaders 2.0 366
Appendices 373
Notes 379
Bibliography 401
Index 411
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