The Crusades

by Chris McNab

Crusading fervour gripped Europe for more than 200 years and yet, almost a millennium later, we continue to question the crusaders’ was it purely spiritual reward or did greed play a part? What did knights from Western Europe have to gain from a hugely risky and expensive missions to the the Holy Land? The Crusades expertly takes the reader into the mindset of crusading knights, exploring, on the one hand, the role played by pilgrimage, penance and piety in Christian life and, on the other, the politics of Western Europe, the Papacy, Byzantium and the Sunni and Shi’a groups in the Middle East. Encompassing both the crusades to the Holy Land, Iberia and the Baltic as well as popular crusading, the book explores how crusades were financed, how the crusader principalities functioned and how they were lost by the end of the 13th century. Looking more broadly at the era, the book reveals how the crusades were reflected in art and the influence they had in reviving Mediterranean trade and in the development of banking. From Christian holy war to Muslim jihad, from the Templars to the Teutonic Knights, from warring monarchs to popular preachers, from pogroms against Jews to crusades against heretics, the book tells the crusading story from the 11th century through to the completion of the Reconquista of Spain in the 15th. Illustrated with 160 photographs, paintings, artworks and maps, The Crusades is a fascinating and accessible history.

Genres: History

338 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 14, 2019

About the author

Dr Chris McNab has written over a hundred books in a career spanning over two decades. He is a historian with a specialisation in military history.

Reviews

[Rex · Rating 1 out of 5]

I realized recently that I knew very little about Medieval history, especially the ongoing activity that dominated much of the period, which we now call the Crusades. This looked like a good book with lots of illustrations and sidebars to help me expand my knowledge. Hardbound, excellent paper stock. Looked promising.

Ooops.

I wasn't sure Chris McNab is a real person since he supposedly has over 100 books on the military, technology and war to his credit. I wondered if, because of the changes in style from chapter to chapter, if he wasn't some AI creation of the publisher. Maybe he is real, and maybe he's a knowledgeable historian and researcher. But he is not a good writer.

There are several problems in the book, such as references to places, rulers, people and ethnic groups with almost no context. It was very difficult to follow and among all the colorful illustrations, one of the things lacking most is maps.

But the thing that drove me crazy and made me start really disliking this book is the author's frequent, unnecessary and obsessive use of parentheses. Someone needs to teach McNab (or his editors) what the (proper) use of parentheses is. When you put (rather) important information in them, multiple times (per page) or even multiple times (per paragraph) it simply breaks the flow and becomes maddingly frustrating to read.

So one star, and regrettably I don't feel I know a whole lot more about the Crusades than I did before reading this.

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really comprehensive history of the Crusades for its small size. I'm quite impressed by its clarity, its broad focus, and its organization. The reading flow is quite good for a history and the pace is fairly solid. The images on the whole are well-selected and illustrative, though I would have appreciated more maps and more photos of the remnants of historic sites. McNab does a good job of contextualizing the actors of the past and writing as objectively as possible, but I found myself wanting more analysis and description of the Islamic World during the period.

A really good introduction to the Crusades and a well-organized reference for future study. I'd recommend this to my friend Carter (though it may be a few thousand pages below his minimum page count)

[Todd Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short overview of the history of the Crusades is an excellent account by McNab. Often, even short historical works on the Crusades quickly become difficult to follow for any reader without a deep knowledge of medieval European history, events, and figures. McNab nimbly navigates the often difficult and typically bizarre nature of an alleged holy war by Christendom against Islam. Each of the 9 major crusading campaigns are explained in impressive simplicity. For anyone seeking to develop a basic framework of understanding this crucial period of world history, McNab’s book is an excellent place to start.