Crusaders
The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands
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- 9,49 €
Descrizione dell’editore
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Popular historian Jones (The Templars) looks in this accessible and thoroughly researched work at the medieval crusaders who, with the authorization of the Pope, took up arms to advance the causes of the Catholic church. This group included leaders and kings who led the well-known Middle Eastern crusaders, such as Richard the Lionhearted; crusaders who fought on the Iberian Peninsula and against northern European pagans; and the major Islamic opponents, such as the leader Saladin. Jones relates the story as much as possible through the words of surviving accounts from the period. The early chapters examine the motivation and strategy behind the first crusade, culminating with the capture of Jerusalem; the middle of the book describes the buildup of crusader power and culminates with its destruction at the Battle of Hattin and the loss of Jerusalem to Islamic forces under Saladin; and the final part of the book documents the slow demise of crusader power in the Middle East and the extermination of the last crusader stronghold at Acre in 1298. Jones paints a vivid and accurate picture of the culture, politics, and personalities of the crusading period, covering vast swaths of history and many personalities with aplomb. The general reader of history and those interested in a deeper understanding of relations between Islam and the West will find this work engaging and informative.
