The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land

by Thomas Asbridge

From a renowned historian who writes with "maximum vividness" ("The New Yorker") comes the most authoritative, readable single-volume history of the brutal struggle for the holy land

Nine hundred years ago, a vast Christian army, summoned to holy war by the Pope, rampaged through the Muslim world of the eastern Mediterranean, seizing possession of Jerusalem, a city revered by both faiths. Over the two hundred years that followed, Islam and Christianity fought for dominion of the Holy Land, clashing in a succession of chillingly brutal wars: the Crusades. Here for the first time is the story of that epic struggle told from the perspective of both Christians and Muslims. A vivid and fast-paced narrative history, it exposes the full horror, passion, and barbaric grandeur of the Crusading era, revealing how these holy wars reshaped the medieval world and why they continue to influence events today.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion, Medieval, War, Medieval History, European History

804 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 9, 2010

About the author

Thomas Asbridge is an internationally renowned expert on the history of the Middle Ages and author of the critically acclaimed books The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land and The First Crusade: A New History. His latest publication is The Greatest Knight: The Remarkable Life of William Marshal, the Power Behind Five English Thrones.

Thomas studied for a BA in Ancient and Medieval History at Cardiff University, and then gained his PhD in Medieval History at Royal Holloway, University of London. His is now Reader in Medieval History at Queen Mary, University of London and Founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Islam & the West.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

“By 1095 Muslims and Christians had been waging war against one another for centuries; no matter how far it was in the past, Islam undoubtedly had seized Christian territory, including Jerusalem…On the other hand, the immediate context in which the crusades were launched gave no obvious clue that a titanic transnational war of religion was either imminent or inevitable. Islam was not about to initiate a grand offensive against the West. Nor were the Muslim rulers of the Near East engaging in acts akin to ethnic cleansing, or subjecting religious minority groups to widespread and sustained oppression. There may at times have been little love lost between Christian and Muslim neighbors, and perhaps there were outbreaks of intolerance in the Levant, but there was, in truth, little to distinguish all this from the endemic political, military and social struggles of the age…”
- Thomas Asbridge, The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land

The Crusades began over nine-hundred and ended over seven-hundred years ago. Despite this vast gulf of time, it often feels very close and relevant. It is remembered – and misremembered – as the starting point of a clash of cultures, religions, and peoples that is being waged to this very day.

Of course, as Thomas Asbridge points out repeatedly in The Crusades, history has a way of being twisted and suited to meet certain rhetorical ends. That is certainly true when it comes to the distant series of religious wars fought over the course of nearly two centuries. The Crusades of reality often bear little relation to our current vision, in which we tend to draw a straight, unbroken line from the sack of Jerusalem to the War on Terror.

Frankly, it is not surprising that the raw material of the Crusades has been molded – and warped – by so many. It is, after all, an incredibly complex set of conflicts, one that is far easier to simplify than to explain with detail and nuance.

One example of this complexity is the fact that historians cannot agree on the number of Crusades that took place. Some count as many as nine “major” Crusades, while Asbridge stops numbering them at five.

These Crusades were not simply a single, extended drive by the Christian West, but very different beasts. The Third Crusade, for instance, came in response to the retaking of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187. Meanwhile, the Fourth Crusade never landed a blow against the Muslim Near East, but got distracted on the way to the Holy Land, ultimately sacking Christian Constantinople, then in the hands of the Byzantines.

However the Crusades are numbered – and in whatever form they took – it should be noted that Asbridge strives for comprehensiveness. The Crusades starts in 1095 with the First Crusade, and concludes with the Siege of Acre in 1291, which is traditionally associated with the end of the Crusading era.

The sheer scope of The Crusades is something I very much appreciated. I’ve read a little about this subject, but without approaching it systematically, I’ve mostly just confused myself. Asbridge provides a remedy to that confusion. The Crusades presents the whole sweep of events, placing a premium on showing how one incident led to – and bled into – another. There are a lot of moving pieces to this story – with fault lines running between Christians and Muslims, Christians and Christians, and Muslims and Muslims – and Asbridge does a fine job trying to keep everything clear. This is a tall order, as the enmities between opposing forces get pretty tangled. Though Asbridge is an expert, he writes accessibly enough that a novice such as myself never got lost. Because of his expertise, he does not always agree with the conventional wisdom or received explanations of what happened or why (in the days before widespread literacy, there is often a paucity of documentary evidence). Whenever Asbridge goes against the grain, however, he does a good job of alerting you, while also laying out his reasoning.

At nearly seven-hundred pages of text, this is a weighty epic. Still, there is not enough room to give every topic the same amount of coverage. The First Crusade (which recaptured Jerusalem and established Outremer) and the Third Crusade (with its duel between Richard the Lionheart and Sultan Saladin) get a lot of play, while the Second and Fourth receive a bit less. Being a newcomer to this historical period, I can’t say with any authority whether this distribution is appropriate or not. I can say that I always felt sufficiently informed about the overall ebb and flow, and about how things were progressing. The maps and timeline certainly helped.

Because the Crusades happened so long ago, it is sometimes hard to imagine that world in which they took place. Asbridge does his best with the material on hand, attempting to flesh out characters such as King Baldwin IV, Richard I, and Saladin. Perhaps the most fascinating figure – at least according to Asbridge – is Sultan Baybars. Enslaved at an early age, he rose to a leadership position in the mamluks, an elite army of slaves that paradoxically provided an opportunity for its forced members to achieve upward mobility. After Sultan Qutuz was assassinated, Baybars took his place, fending off both Mongols and Christians to consolidate his hold over Egypt and Syria.

Throughout, Asbridge makes a concerted effort to shift perspectives, so that the narrative does not run solely through either the Christians or Muslims, but through both. In other words, Asbridge does not take sides. If he has an agenda, it is in attempting to understand the Crusades as it would have been understood by the participants. It is easy to view this period with the cynical eye of 21st century hindsight, to reduce everything to political pragmatism or ruthless power grabs. These aspects were certainly present. Yet as hard as it may be for us to imagine, genuine religious devotion also spurred many actions on both sides.

Drawing lessons from history is a fraught exercise. Refreshingly, Asbridge’s central message is that the Crusades have far less to teach us than might be assumed. Blindly accepting that the Crusades created the present-day East-West, Muslim-Christian divide ignores a whole host of far more relevant – and recent – intervening factors. It also makes it seem like the chasm simply cannot be bridged, since it has existed for so long.

For Asbridge, the Crusades are first and foremost a great and tragic human drama. There are acts of extreme heroism, low cowardice, and wanton depravity. There are leaders both insipidly self-concerned and farsightedly transformational. There are legendary warriors and near-mythical fighting forces, such as the Knights Templar, the mamluks, and the Order of Assassins. There is even a brief cameo by Genghis Khan, just to add another layer to the plot. Asbridge demonstrates that the Crusades are fully worth discovering. At the same time, they are a part of the past that should be left in the past.

[Myke Cole · Rating 4 out of 5]

You’d be hard pressed to find a topic more politically charged than the Crusades, especially as the world sloughs out of our War on Terror hangover, and fumbles into the terrorscape of cyber threats and subornment of the United States. People feel *really* strongly about what the Crusades should mean, and how they should be interpreted. The pressure to cleave to a political narrative when writing about this has to be incredibly strong.

And it is to Asbridge’s credit that he resists it. Instead, he faithfully interprets the contemporary sources, more or less ignoring the massive tower of secondary scholarship that has both illuminated and influenced the field. Asbridge uses his extensive background in the period to interpret contemporary writers, but he also approaches the material with an empathy and a face-value commitment that’s refreshing and rare. To put it simply: Asbridge gets the medieval mind, both in the Muslim and Christian worlds, and the result is a much more even-handed look at the motivations behind the crusading phenomena.

It doesn’t hurt that Asbridge has a brisk prose style that brings the narrative drama to the fore without sacrificing scholarship in the process. The crusades are, of course, a war-story, but Asbridge rightly puts the focus on the mental and emotional motivators behind the warriors, rather than straying into war-porn topics of gear, deployment and descriptions of casualties.

Highly recommended.

[Mike Mason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bought this book many years ago and it was consigned to a dusty shelf. However, after reading Dan Jones book on the Templars I decided to dust it off. Glad I did as a great read. Certainly an authoritative text and long at almost 700 pages. But it managed to cram in everything you needed to know about the Crusades. Taking a perspective from both sides in a balanced way. I am left with the sadness of the barbarity of both sides - accumulating incidents of large scale death. The massacre of 2700 defenders of Acre after its fall by Richard the Lion Heart is an image that will remain indelibly marked with me. Whilst more of a text book than Dan Jone’s narrative style this was an easy read and rewarding one.

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic narrative history of the Crusades from the First Crusade at the end of the 11th Century right up till the end of Christian Outremer in the 1290s when Islam regained control of the Levant after nearly 200 years of 'occupation' by the Latin Christians. A really gripping, page-turning read, as Tom Asbridge writes fluidly with a really straightforward prose that is just packed full of interesting facts, analyses and hypothesis. This book, for 680 pages, covers all the main historical figures that this epoch threw up in the history books, such as Richard the Lionheart, probably the most successful warrior-king for the whole 200 years in the Levant and his contemporary Saladin, again probably the most successful Islamic ruler in the same period, the Baldwins of Jerusalem, Queen Melisende and so on. Pivotal figures in the history of the Crusades.

I knew so little really about this era and what with the BBC TV series presented by Thomas Asbridge recently along with his condensed one book history of all main five Crusades, really opened my eyes and increased my knowledge of the Middle Ages. The author just does not exclusively focus upon the Western Christian aspect however, instead he also examines the Islamic leaders focusing mainly on the Ayyubid dynasty of Saladin and his heirs, explaining the fractured divisive religion that Islam was at the start of the 12th Century which probably allowed the extreme success and luck that the First Crusade had in conquering Jerusalem in 1099 that allowed them to gain a foothold in the Levant that then became known as the 'Outremer'.

What surprised me the most however, is that the success of the First Crusade was never really repeated in the next 200 years - all the other four main crusades never really had the same level of success - maybe the Third Crusade under Richard Lionheart stopped Saladin from reconquering the Levant, but again indecisiveness allowed that crusade also to flounder. In fact, they all really fail afterwards some quite drastically. Also, at the end of this book, Thomas Asbridge then brings us to the present day and the current conflict in the middle-east and tries to suggest that there really is no and should not be any relationship between what happened 800 years ago and the current conflict between radical Islam and the West today. He then goes on to claim that any similarities in the rhetoric of using Crusade metaphors is plain wrong, that history has been distorted and that the Crusades were a specific product at a particular stage in history, and that not only did the Christians claim land, but it increased trade and encouraged the swapping of ideas between Islam and the West that would later help the Renaissance develop. I found it really interesting final chapter.

A good read, and it has left my appetite hungry for more studying, not only of this epoch, but also for understanding more about the Middle-Ages too. 5 stars.

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always been interested in the Crusades and I found this book to be a wonderful introduction to the subject. It covers two centuries of strife in the Middle East and the struggle for Jerusalem. Plus ca change.

The Crusades were a chaotic series of expeditions inspired by papal exhortations and promises of forgiveness of sin through a just war - the innovative use of indulgences was to rebound a while later to massive effect.

What caught me was the sheer incompetence of it all. Crusades were invariably lost, scattered or dissipated against targets such as Byzantium or Egypt rather than the Holy Land. This makes it all the more remarkable that the crusades managed to carve out a series of principalities in Palestine and Syria, and that these endured for the best part of two centuries.

I liked the way that Asbridge provided the Islamic slant on the struggles. In a way the crusaders hit a sweet spot in that they struck at a border zone between competing Islamic states. Palestine was relatively unimportant compared to the great centres of Egypt and Mesopotamia, that is until the Islamic reaction set in and it became politically powerful to be seen to be championing Islam against the infidels.

Sprinkled into the mix are the great characters from the era, people such as Richard the Lionheart, Saladin, Saint Louis and lesser known but equally compelling people like the leper king Baldwin IV, Bohemond I and Queen Isabella. In large part the proto states in this era were melded and agglomerated by "big men" (usually men) - only to fall apart amidst dynastic feuding on their death.

A good read

[K.J. Charles]

A really interesting overview of the wars in Outremer (to use the Frankish term), with lots of space given to the Muslim side of things, explaining the politics of succession and internecine wars. It's very readable for what it is--ie a book focusing on the wars. I really benefited from reading it paired with Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands which takes a much wider geographical view along with much deeper dives into human stories (including women!) but which I wouldn't have appreciated nearly as much without the factual grounding from this one.

[Bettie · Rating 4 out of 5]

BBC FOUR: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01b3ftw

Description: Dr Thomas Asbridge presents a revelatory account of the Crusades, the 200-year war between Christians and Muslims for control of the Holy Land.

The story of the Crusades is remembered as a tale of religious fanaticism and unspeakable violence, but now fresh research, eyewitness testimony and contemporary evidence from both the Christian and Islamic worlds shed new light on how these two great religions waged war in the name of God.



Episode one: HOLY WAR: traces the epic journey of the first crusaders as they marched 3,000 miles from Europe to recapture the city of Jerusalem from Islam, enduring starvation, disease and bloodthirsty battle to reach their sacred goal, and then unleashed an appalling tide of barbaric violence upon their Muslim enemies. Yet far from being the invincible holy warriors of legend, Dr Asbridge reveals that these crusaders actually considered surrender in the midst of their titanic expedition.



Episode two: CLASH OF THE TITANS: Dr Thomas Asbridge offers a piercing examination of the Third Crusade and the two renowned figures who have come to embody Crusader war: Richard the Lionheart, king of England, and the mighty Muslim sultan Saladin, unifier of Islam. Drawing on fascinating eyewitness accounts and contemporary records, Dr Asbridge constructs an insightful and nuanced picture of these men and their fiercely fought struggle for the Holy Land.

Almost perfectly matched as adversaries, these two titans of holy war clashed during a year-long campaign that raged across Palestine. Both were willing to commit appalling atrocities in pursuit of victory. Each brought the full force of his military genius, guile and cunning to bear, all in pursuit of the ultimate prize: Jerusalem. Dr Asbridge reveals how this shattering conflict brought Saladin and Richard to their knees, even as it served to forge their legends.Watch here

Episode 3: VICTORY AND DEFEAT: In the concluding episode of the series, Dr Thomas Asbridge reveals that the outcome of these epic holy wars was decided not on the hallowed ground of Jerusalem, but in Egypt. As trade blossomed between Christians and Muslims and the Mongol hordes arrived from Asia, a saintly French king - afire with crusading zeal - and the most remarkable Muslim leader of the Middle Ages fought for ultimate victory in the East.

Drawing upon eyewitness chronicles and the latest archaeological evidence, Dr Asbridge argues that it was a fearsome slave-warrior from the Russian Steppes - now forgotten in the West - who finally sealed the fate of the crusades. And, most controversially of all, Asbridge challenges the popular misconception that the medieval crusades sparked a clash of civilisations between Islam and the West that continues to this day.Watch here

The statue of Sultan Saladin in Kerak, Jordan



It is good to remember that forces swept out of Arabia into Palestine and these following crusades were to regain Jerusalem for Christianity. I reference the erudite A History of Palestine 634-1099. There is no accounting for the savagery committed by both sides in the name of God, yet the siege of Acre surely takes the biscuit. Shame on both your houses, then and now.

The content here is thorough, scholarly and truly well researched, however Asbridge is not a presenter I enjoy watching, he would have been better putting his hands in his pockets or held them behind his back. I know, that is purely subjective.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been listening to this off and on for maybe two weeks. Never actually marked it as currently reading because it is such a door stopper I wasn't sure I was going to actually listen to it long enough to finish it. Well I finished it this morning while I was supposed to be sleeping since I'm on jury duty in the mornings. Yeah I think my sleep is just going to be %*{!^+ this week.

[Mohamed Shady · Rating 5 out of 5]

جميل جدًا جدًا

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine and concise overview of a complex, two centuries long cycle of conquest - first Western, then Muslim. I say concise because even at nearly 700 pages of text, it's obvious that any given chapter of this book could itself be expanded into a more detailed volume.

I'm casually familiar with medieval history and the crusades, but as it turns out, I didn't really know what a crusade was, how one was orchestrated, what the participants believed they were participating in, how crusades changed over two centuries, and how they fit into the political landscape of the day. In this, I'm reminded of Mary Beard's book on Roman triumphs; you think you know what's involved - red face paint, a chariot, a little parade - but the answer is more complex than that. Of course, maybe at some level history is unknowable, and we're always forced to oversimplify and take shortcuts. Bad philosophy notwithstanding, I know a little more about the crusading wars than I did before.

Highlights:

* Ad din means "of the faith." Hence Nasir al Din, or more famously Salah ad Din, Saladin ("the righteousness of the faith"). Saladin! Cool.

* Warfare in the 11th, 12th, 13th centuries was a decidedly less than dynamic affair. Sieges were the order of the day; smart generals avoided open battle unless they had either overwhelming numbers or some perceived advantage to balance out the risk of annihilation. Disease ran rampant, and killed high and low alike. Logistics were unthinkably alien to the modern eye - land transport slow, exposed and costly, sea transport slow, exposed, and costly. Heavily armored knights cost a small fortune to field, and generally constituted only a small portion of overall army size.

* Neither side was a monolith. Both the Christians and Muslims were riven with internal divisions, and neither viewed the conflict (or series of conflicts) as an existential, top-tier priority. Both sides had inconsistent leadership. The Christians in particular suffered from a lack of focus, given the nature of crusading as a personal act of devotion, and not a life-long calling.

* Battles on the Nile! This was news to me. Of note, the Christians fought two battles in the delta (separated by many years), and both time the Muslims managed to sneak ships behind them to block their escape. Ouch.

* Baybars and the rise of the Mamluk slave soldiers. This guy was almost certainly a sociopath, but a very clever and persistent one. No chivalrous legends are told about him in the West, and with good reason.

Note to self: don't create an empire based on the military prowess of slave soldiers and expect them not to stage a coup and seize the reins of power.

Lots of other good stuff in here. It's not a quick read, but worth the work.

[Rindis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Authoritative - adj. "having or showing impressive knowledge about a subject"

Asbridge's 'authoritative history' of the Crusades certainly does this. It is a very extensive look at the period in a single volume. There are problems; I think there is still not enough examination of what was going on in the Muslim world around the Crusader States, and the role of Byzantium in the area is barely touched on most of the time. But, neither are these absent.

In fact, the role of Byzantine cooperation with the First Crusade is examined in some detail; it is only later that they drop too far off the stage. Also, the role of jihad (or even the existence of it) is meditated upon at length in the middle of the book, especially in relation to rooting out how much of Saladin's actions matched his propaganda as a mujahid. Indeed, one of the primary goals of the book is to try and 'correct' certain long-held traditions, notably around just how much animosity existed around Outremer with relation to Byzantium and the surrounding Muslims.

I have to note that despite this detailed study, I was disappointed with losing a lot of details that I'm used to. This is because I'm used to Runciman's three-volume A History of the Crusades. One volume can't really compete with three (though they are individually smaller than this one), but the 'authoritative' tag made me instantly want to compare them.

As a one-volume history, it is very good, but it does not replace Runciman's history, and while the parts that do re-evaluate the Crusades are a nice companion to it, it is too extensive just for that.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am fairly certain that I have read more history books than is typical for a 24-year-old girl, perhaps more than is typical for a 50-year-old man. So, I have been around the history book block a time or two. I have slowly been starting to get more and more interested in the earlier decades of the creation of nations or empires in Europe. The Crusades have always been a fairly basic given to me, Christians went to war to promote Christianity and take back Jerusalem. Cool? Reading this book, I really enjoyed the fairly unbiased look at both the Christian and Islamic camps in these struggles. It is easy to gloss over certain factors whether in favour of Christianity or Islam so equally presenting the mythic and the real, probable reasons behind actions was fantastic. It was a thorough look at the Crusades, the reasons, the preparations, the decisions, the battles and the outcomes, through the eyes of both Christian and Islamic warriors. For an overview of the entire saga of the Crusades, this was definitely a good book to read.

[Sweetwilliam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting and readable narrative history. The book’s focus is the war for the holy land. The Albigensian crusade and the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula are given little more than a mention. Also, the fighting in Asia Minor, the conquest of Crete, and the sack of Constantinople are not covered in any great depth. Still, the book is a very good history of the rise and fall of the Crusader States.

November 17th, 1095, Pope Urban II, called for the First Crusade to take back the holy land which had been lost to Islam for about 400 years. There was no pressing issue, and the timing was odd. The Byzantium Empire was in no great danger at the time and besides, they didn’t want the Frankish armies traversing their lands to get to the Levant anyway. In fact, subsequent crusades would sack Constantinople and kill many Eastern Orthodox Christians.

Jerusalem was captured in 1099 and the State of Outremer was established. If you believe in divine intervention, then God must have been on the side of the Crusaders during the 1st Crusade. Battle after battle was won by the outnumbered, mostly horseless, starving, and thirsty crusaders. They were united by an idea and inspired by relics like the true cross and the Holy Lance (a relic imagined to be the spear that was used to pierce the side of Christ.)

After a while, the crusades were exploited for political benefit by the Pope. For example, Pope Innocent III called for a crusade on The Holy Roman Empire while the emperor himself– Fredrick of Hohenstaufen – was fighting in the holy land on behalf of the Catholic Church!

Absolution of the crusaders was something that evolved over time. By the time of the 4th Crusade, 1204, Pope Innocent III, decreed that Catholics could avoid fighting by paying a large sum of money to the church. This practice would evolve into what the author would refer to as the gold standard of the selling of indulgences – a practice that would fracture Catholicism into several different Christian religions.

The research and data assembled to make this book is nothing short of amazing. The author provides a blow-by-blow and often painful account of Richard the Lionheart’s siege of Acre and march down the coast to Jerusalem during the 3rd Crusade. How does one write a narrative of something from 1000 years ago, before paper was invented? According to the author, the world’s first narrative history was written during the crusades.

After Jerusalem fell the first time, it was apparent to me that the logistics were such that trying to reconquer and hold that territory was not feasible long term, and negotiation was the best solution for all parties. In fact, A fractured Islam led to the conquest of the Levant in the first place. A fractured Christianity, internal struggles about succession, and logistical challenges led to its fall.

The Crusades did help to open direct trade routes to Europe and facilitate an exchange of ideas. This was a time when Western Christian thinking in science and medicine lagged that of the Eastern world. For example, the book contains an account of a Muslim physician who was on hand to witness a crusader procedure to expel demons from a woman. He said, rather contemptuously, that the crusader doctors shaved the woman’s head and then cut a cross on the top. Next, they poured salt in the wound and the woman died an agonizing death. This was the state of Western medicine at the time.

One thing I wanted to determine is the connection between the crusades of the Middle Ages and the West’s current struggles with the Near and Middle East today? The answer, according to the author, is that there is no connection at all. World leaders bring up the crusades when it suits their propaganda purposes but there really is no connection.

[Ken · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land Thomas Asbridge,
1st Crusade 1095 the most stunning and effective crusade of them all, with its capture of Jerusalem 1099 and for the next 2 centuries with numerous more crusades but all of them pretty much a downward spiral of I imagine a motorway of tears and in 1291 the crusaders final collapse at the siege of Acre and their ultimate expulsion from the Levant, Israel.
It left the Levant Muslim, well on the road to having the world's most enlightened sciences progressive theology, unified political systems, advanced military technolgies for their longest known period, and their 400 years of warfare political expansion with the high tide mark, Muslim Ottomans 1683 siege of Vienna deeper into Europe even than the dreaded 13th century Mongols.
The crusades left the western Europe Kingdoms shocked and their perceived invicibilty of their theology and political systems shattered, inheriting the ghosts and last vestiges of the Roman empire. The debatable fact is they had a weak political systems (lord and indentured serf, high born and slave) everwhere it was now in tatters devolving into numerous civil wars, wars of kingdoms against kingdoms, noble houses fighting among themselves and ruthlessness shown within many royal families assasinating brothers, mothers fathers, and cousins. It questioned their theological beliefs and turned their society inside out causing a huge list of failures and constant warfare and strife eventually changing little by little until the 16th century Renaissance gave it a name, so began a new age of science and exploration with interceded by warfare that continued until 1945, Europe is finally at peace, though thats very precarious as Ukraine says wtf. Leaving 2 regional world powers one collapsed in 1990 but 30 years later has reimerged even more worrying.
The first crusade 1095 to recover Jerusalem after Byzantium Christians lost it to the Anatolian Seljuks 1073 (battle of Manzikert 1071) 1095 Pope Urban himself and his bishops wide spread preaching to the nobles of France, Italy, England, Germany eventually recruited near 80-100,000 crusdaers majority being French, blow by blow with staggering casualties estimates of 80% they wrested control of Jerusalem back, holding onto Jerusalem for nearly 100 years, Saladin 1185 which kicked off the third crusade 1189 , second collapsed, but like already mentioned after the first crusade all following crusades were disasters great and far from great.
Overall history of the crusades drags its way kicking and screaming into modern mainstream thinking, the dreaded bottomless pit of books movies media reports, colloquial language, even kiwi rugby team, Crusaders" aren't immune uncountable instances of prejudice and pure hatred with some very destructive groups and individuals 2019 Christchurch massacre, so painful and what the fuck just happened, stupid, self indoctrinated misinformed (idiots) who perceive themselves as disadvantaged, but actually have no idea.
Asbridge covers the beginning to the end in a condensed easily followed historic tale that isn't dry or boring, putting real personalities behind the the most famous in our times like King Richard the Lionheart but famous in their times, the deeply religious King Phillip of France, Lord Godfrey of Boulion genius battle tactics, Baldwin of Boulogne daring epic cavalry rides deep into enemy lines, Raymond of Toulouse some say the cleverest of them all, shaping negotiating his independently minded fellow crusaders lords and nobles to work together sometimes successfully, chaotically frequently. Priests reciting prayers spread out among the advancing entranced and resolute men, that eventually gave birth to the Templars and Hospitaler orders of fightiing priests.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 5 out of 5]

A readable, straightforward history of the Crusades.

Asbridge covers this history from both the Christian and Muslim perspectives, and the book is mostly focused on the Crusades in the Holy Land. He does a great job describing how the idea evolved, the motives of the crusaders, and the military dimensions of European and Muslim cultures of the day.

Asbridge also covers the improbable success of the first European Crusades, the development of the just war theory, and how the crusaders often had more ambition than clear knowledge about the land they wanted to conquer. The narrative is well-researched, comprehensive and balanced, and he provides well-drawn portraits of people like Saladin and Richard I. The cast of characters is also easy to keep track of.

A well-written, informative and in-depth work.

[Lain · Rating 5 out of 5]

Asbridge is one of those fabled few historians who manage to combine historical narrative with analysis of causes and events, assessment of source material, and pure enjoyable storytelling. This is a book that reads and is engaging like a great novel, yet it's filled to the brim with discussion of historical context, various interpretations of events and the motivations of different characters. Was it really 700 pages long? It didn't feel like it. I was especially impressed by his frequent use of diaries, letters and first-hand accounts to describe battles and sieges, he gives them smell and makes them breathe, both from christian and muslim perspectives. It all comes alive in a very immersive way when you view events through the eyes of actual participants. What started as a poorly formulated movement with mass appeal turned into an incredibly influential and well organized pan-european institution. The crusading spirit was an incredibly powerful force, but also showed itself to be immensely challenging for worldly leaders to control and direct.

A short comment on the title: this is a book about the war for the Holy Land, which means that various crusading 'digressions' into Spain and North Africa, the Baltics, Constantinople, and Southern France are mostly presented as factors diluting the resources available to the crusader states in the Levant. These new ventures are used to showcase the gradual evolution of the crusading idea and how various parties, especially the papacy, tried to shape and direct crusading energy towards political goals. The book is a perfect marriage of academic and popular history, with none of the drudgery of the former, nor being bombastic like the latter. It doesn't hurt that he's writing about an incredibly interesting topic which he's clearly impassioned about. I do not think "the authoritative history" is an apt title, it is too much of an abridgement to serve that purpose, but as far as general introductions go, this is a great place to start.

6 out of 5 stars

[Massimo Pigliucci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Depending on how one counts, there were at least eight major Crusades that took place between 1096 and 1270. The alleged goal of them all was to recover Jerusalem, taking it away from Muslim hands and returning it to Christian ones. (The city had fallen under Muslim control in 638 CE, during the military efforts of the Rashidun Caliphate against the Byzantine Empire.) In reality, motivations on both sides were complex, and although they certainly included religious fervor, they also comprised greed for power, wealth, and “glory.” Acts of heroism, as well as barbarous massacres, were carried out on both sides. There were no good guys, only “leaders” who sent countless people to death to serve their own purposes, and masses who followed those leaders out of a combination of ideological zealoutry, poverty, and ignorance. In other words, the Crusades are a perfect encapsulation of much of human history, particularly easy to study because they were limited in time and space. One learns much about human nature from reading the story as recounted by Thomas Asbridge, though depression is perhaps an inevitable (and reasonable) outcome of such reading. It is hard to believe that still today, in the West, plenty of people (usually politicians and religious ideologues) use the word “Crusade” as if it were a good thing, apparently having learned nothing from the actual history. Do yourself a favor and buck that trend: read about it, learn about it, and remember.

[Sleepy Boy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great look at the Crusades in one volume. Very readable and easy to understand.

[Frank Theising · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and thought the author did an excellent job examining this subject from both sides, rather than the typical positive or negative portrayal depending on your Christian or Muslim (or secular) biases. The Crusades cover a much larger period of time than I realized and were a lot messier than the popular narratives (with lots of Muslim-on-Muslim and Christian-on-Christian violence, various Christian-Muslim alliances due to internal rivalries and power struggles, and much cultural and economic exchange. There certainly were loads of atrocities that shock our modern sensibilities but do not seem particularly out of place in the feudal, Medieval (Christian or Muslim) world. Also found it interesting how this overlapped with the Mongol Empire’s expansion into the Middle East (and though not explicitly covered, find it fascinating how the Mongol invasion doesn’t really carry the same stigma as the Crusades). I also appreciated the author providing how perspectives (both Western and Muslim) have changed over the centuries and how modern events have popularized views that were not always maintained in the past. Overall, I thought this was an excellent overview of the Crusades and would recommend it to anyone interested in learning about this fascinating period in world history.

What follows are some notes on the book:

It was a profoundly spiritual age in the Latin West. Pope Gregory, then Urban II pioneered holy war as a new path to purification and salvation. Christianity is a pacifistic faith, but scholars pondering its union with Latin Empire began to question if scripture truly prohibited bloodshed. Gregory set the precedent of serving in holy war as a means of penance.

A marshal spirit and lust for conquest fueled a rapid expansion of the Muslim world. The key flaw inherent was the internal division and feuding over rightful succession of caliphs leading to the fragmentation of the Muslim world. At the time of the first crusade, the Muslim world was so riven by division that they couldn’t provide a coordinated response. These divisions made the timing for an invasion propitious.

The Levant was not a Muslim stronghold but a patchwork of different ethnicities and faiths. The first crusade was not actually an invasion of the Muslim heartland (Muslim power centered in Mesopotamia), but frontier areas peopled by an assortment of Muslims, Jews, and Christians. More realistic to consider these border wars.

Did the Muslim world provoke the crusades or was this an act of aggression by the Christian world? Muslims had seized Christian lands first, but this some 600 years in the past. Hardly a new offense demanding a new offensive. Christians and Muslims had been skirmishing for centuries and there was no evidence that a titanic transnational war of religion was imminent.

What we call the First Crusade numbered somewhere between 60K – 100K crusaders. The Byzantine capitol of Constantinople was the jumping off point for invasion to the Muslim world. First target was the siege and capture of Nicaea.

The crusaders were a composite, not cohesive force with their own internal language/cultural barriers. The Seljuk Turks attacked but failed to repulse the invaders. Starvation and disease wrought worse on the Christians. The crusaders sought alliances with Armenian Christians who could resupply them for the invasion of Syria.

Greco-Latin cooperation was crucial to their successful capture of Antioch. After 8 months, the Latins breached the defenses with the help of an insider who opened a gate. After capturing it, they were besieged by a relief force from Baghdad that arrived and surrounded the city. Rather than reinforce, the Byzantines retreated to Constantinople and were never forgiven by the Latins.

With every expectation of defeat, the Latins pulled off a stunning surprise victory leaving Antioch in Christian hands. Internal disputes stalled any advance on Jerusalem. After 10 months of frustrating delays, the Franks continued their march towards Jerusalem. Their ferocity and atrocities in battle led many coastal towns en-route to Jerusalem to put up no resistance and offered them safe passage.

With only 15K troops and cut off from resupply, they had no option but to crack the shell of Jerusalem and take the city before the Fatimids of Egypt could reach them. They breached the wall with some innovative ideas and captured the city. After three years in the field they slaughtered the residents of Jerusalem indiscriminately. With roughly 10K troops left they faced another test as an army of 20,000 was marching from Egypt to retake Jerusalem.

Despite petty rivalry amongst the Latin leaders they determined, with one last act of solidarity, to conduct a surprise attack on the Muslim force. Catching them by surprise they quickly turned it into a route. The first crusade was a miraculous success. Internal squabbling prevented capture of a critical port Ashkelon, that would be a thorn in the Frankish outpost’s side for years to come.

Buoyed by the success of the first crusade, recruitment for the 1101 crusade was enormous. However it would prove a debacle because they failed to heed the warning for unified action. Three separate armies set out for the holy land and each were wiped out by a coalition of Muslim Turks. It would be decades before next series of crusades, leaving the Jerusalem dangerously exposed. The Muslim response to the first crusade was mostly muted. The unlikely success of the first crusade left a disjointed patchwork of vulnerable outposts that needed to be defended.

King Baldwin I of Jerusalem consolidated power and continue to conquer territory including ports. However, Tyre and Ashkelon remained Muslim strongholds that opened up avenues of attack. Al-Afdal arrived at the port of Ashkelon with overwhelming numbers. Against all odds, Baldwin defeated the Egyptian army. However Egyptians were rich enough to mount the second invasion immediately. Baldwin barely and miraculously escaped and fled. He regrouped and counterattacked saving his kingdom with but with great loss. Throughout these precarious years, the Latins were extremely lucky that there was never an alliance between Syria and Egypt. His meager forces and resources would never have been able to stand it.

Less than 10 years after the conquest of Jerusalem Baldwin and Tancred (ruled Antioch) we’re engaged in Latin-on-Latin warfare. Baldwin even allied with 5000 Muslim in his fight against Antioch. Baldwin continued to outmaneuver Tancred on the diplomatic front and established Jerusalem as the preeminent Latin settlement in the near east. Tancred expanded his borders with an unceasing string of fighting for years on end. Despite regular dynastic struggles and rivalries, the Latin enclaves continued to join forces in the face of Muslim attacks from Mosel.

Over time, Pilgrims to the holy land formed monastic orders (the Templars and Hospitallers). Over the 12th and 13th centuries these two orders would build their own standing armies that were well funded and well equipped. They would become the heart of crusading during the 13th century. Independent of any established kingdom, keeping them in the Levant the entire time could be destabilizing.

Outremer (French for overseas) was the name for these Latin outposts. They didn’t displace the local populace but the small elite ruled over a mixture of Jews, Muslims, and eastern Christians (Armenians, Copts, etc) in a melting pot of cultural exchange.

In 1144, Zengi opportunistically captured Aleppo. This placed northern territory into enemy hands putting the entire region at risk of domino like collapse. This shock sparked the Second Crusade and an unprecedented surge of crusading enthusiasm that expanded into Iberia as well. This second crusade had much greater specificity in the spiritual benefits for the Crusaders but failed to list specific strategic objectives.

While the Pope helped to initiate the second crusade, the papacy had not yet figured out how to harness this new method of sanctified warfare. Disparate armies did not congeal into any strategic plan and were heavily reliant on noble and royal participation. European monarchs Louis and Conrad’s example set the expectation of royal involvement in future crusades, bringing with them greater prestige, resources, and manpower, but also contributing to disunity and conflicting objectives.

The journey would be a disaster as they failed to coordinate or get the approval of the Byzantine Empire (now mistrustful of the Latins). The divided German and French armies failed to unite and Conrad III set out on his own, but the Seljuk Turks were prepared & the Germans suffered the loss of thousands. After Zengi was assassinated by rival Muslims, his son Nur Ad-Din would further build on his success. He would eradicate Edessa, one of the 4 Christian states in the Levant and go on to conquer all of Syria (mostly from other Muslims) including Damascus. He subsequently made peace treaty with Jerusalem.

The Franks captured Ashkelon in 1153. Nur Ad-Din sent a force to invade Egypt. The Fatimids appealed to the Franks for help. The Frank’s agreed and Egypt was now a client state of Jerusalem paying them annual tribute. Jerusalem overplayed its hand and invaded Egypt. Egypt then appealed to Syria/Damascus and fell to Nur Ad-Din. Saladin emerges in Egypt as the Sunni vizier to the Shiite King. He bided his time consolidating power until the young king died from illness before he would make his move. Nur Ad-Din’s empire now spread from Syria to the Nile, surrounding Outremer. But Saladin was very independent and a growing threat to rule from Syria.

On the cusp of conflict, Nur Ad-Din died, allowing Saladin to emerge as his own man with expansive ambitions. The Zengid dynasty built over 20 years fractured overnight. Saladin took Egypt and in time was invited north by rival factions seeking protection, resulting in the largely bloodless capture of Aleppo and Damascus. Any conflict against fellow Muslims was justified as building Muslim unity to take on the Franks.

As Saladin was rising, Outremer was racked by a series of succession crisis, ushering in a disastrous power struggle. Saladin was now in a position to throw overwhelming numbers at the divided kingdom of Jerusalem, which he captured. It was only a matter of time until he captured the remaining Frankish outposts like Tyre.

The fall of Jerusalem sent shockwaves thru Europe. Richard the Lionheart, Frederick Barbarossa, and Philip Augustus all led armies on the third crusade. Internal Muslim rivalries resumed after capture of Jerusalem. Barbarossa drowned but Philip and Richard brought renewed vigor to siege of Acre. After the fall of Acre, Philip returned to France leaving Richard alone to shoulder the costs of crusade.

Having tried and failed to defeat Richard in the field twice, Saladin adopted a scorched earth policy. Richard arrived in Jaffa, 40 miles from Jerusalem facing the decision whether to re-capture Ashkelon or move on Jerusalem and leave the security of the coast. Richard dithered 7 weeks, giving Saladin time to prepare.

Richard pulled back from attacking Jerusalem in winter, demoralizing his army. A great counter factual: he could have captured the city possibly shattering Saladin’s coalition. Given the trouble with a siege while Saladin still had a field army, most believe it was the wisest course of a prudent strategist not blinded by religious zealotry. After 10 months at war, rumors his brother John was scheming for power and he would soon have to return. But didn’t want to leave a failure.

Richard stayed but lost control of the 3rd crusade to the Barons who announced they would move on Jerusalem with or without him. Richard preferred a scheme to take Egypt and permanently break Ayyubid power, but he bowed to public opinion. He stayed but refused to lead. For a second time, they retreated from Jerusalem. Richard concluded a 3 year truce and returned to Europe. Saladin maintained control of Jerusalem but failed to prevent the re-conquest of the coast. Shortly after Richard’s departure Saladin fell ill and died. Richard died before the 4th crusade.

Innocent III rose to the papacy and started the 4th crusade. He centralized fundraising and sought a more active role but failed to understand the importance of royal/noble involvement and started on a poor footing, undermanned and underfunded. Crusaders were directed against rival Christians (like Byzantine Constantinople) or heretics (in Spain, the Balkans, and France). The 4th crusade never made it to the holy land. During the 5th crusade, Innocent initiated a reform to have those unable to fight, pay cash to support the crusade and receive the same spiritual reward (precursor to Indulgences).

Ayyubid Empire fractured overnight after Saladin’s death. Divided among his sons but his brother seized power. Levant faced with succession crisis throughout the 13th century (for both Latins and Muslims).

The fifth crusade would target Egypt. The Ayyubids twice offered Jerusalem to the Crusaders to forestall an attack on Egypt. An offer that was rejected twice. The prosecution of this crusade was criminally inept. They marched into Egypt right before the annual flooding of the Nile. Their armies became trapped and surrendered. Frederick II, descendent of Barbarossa refuse to join the crusade until the Pope crowned him emperor of Germany. Frederick II married queen of Palestine and so led as King of Jerusalem. He was excommunicated for delaying his departure. When he did go, he successfully negotiated the return of Jerusalem. The Muslims were more interested in keeping profitable commercial ties than war. The Pope continued his rivalry with Fredrick and eventually called for crusaders to attack his Hohenstaufen Christian enemy. This and other fronts (Iberia) left Outremer neglected.

New Egyptian coalition recaptured Jerusalem. Louis IX only monarch not bogged down with internal warfare (John vs his barons, Frederick vs Pope Gregory IX) and responded to a call to crusade. He attempted a bold amphibious landing on the Egyptian coast. The weakened Ayyubid sultan tapped the last loyal source of manpower: Mamluk slave warriors.

Louis repeated the mistakes of the 5th crusade and was captured. He was ransomed but remained in the Middle East 4 years, strengthening Crusader states. When the sultan was assassinated, the Mamluks seized power. Their principal rival however would not be the Franks, but the Mongols. After the Mamluks halted the “unstoppable” Mongol advance, Sultan Baybers sought to wipe the Latin presence off the map. His goal was not occupation but destruction of the Latin beachhead that enabled Europe to send forces to the holy land. In one final crusade, Louis IX and future king of England invaded Tunis that went nowhere. Baybers’ successor sacked the remaining outposts of Outremer

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Crusades was my latest read on the titular events, which I regard as a primary focus of my historical research. It is fact- and character-driven, not a mere narrative, but a chronology describing the important events, how they came about, how we know of them, their consequences, and so on. It describes life in the era of the Crusades, how the idea of crusading evolved from an armed pilgrimage into a dedicated military enterprise, how the Crusader States were ruled, and of course, how the battles of the oriental campaigns were fought.

These latter descriptions are all you can ask for in a book on military history. They are almost pedantic in how they describe who was where doing what, they describe the worst and the best in humanity, kindness shown to enemies and inhuman brutality, heroic standoffs and the suffering of the people after a prolonged siege. Asbridge not just describes strategy and tactics or military technology (although he does that spledindly), but he really gives an impression of what warfare must have felt like. Particularly memorable were the Siege of Acre, the Battle of Ramla, and the Battle of Dorylaeum, but really, you can make your pick. There is something for every fan of military history in this.

As I said, the book is also character-driven. Much attention is given to such persons as Fulk Nerra of Anjou, Richard Coeur de Lion, Bohemond of Taranto, Louis IX, or Bernard Clairvaux. It is not always poignant, but that is no big problem, Asbridge relays enough of the facts that you can make up your own mind about these people. Some descriptions are better than others, but I don't think there was a character that I could not make at least some sense of towards the end. Perhaps Raymond of Toulouse comes close, but that might be on me, perhaps I am trying to read more consistency into him than I should. I cannot say I understand him less, either.

The book gives a lot of attention to the muslim perspective on the Crusades and their contemporary politics. To me, that is very welcome. Asbridge manages to stay fair and largely unbiased in his assessments. He does not portray Salah Ad-din as the hero of legend, but as a shrewd politician and propagandist, a schemer, who won wars by picking his battles wisely and not by tackling the odds or heroically standing his ground. Acre was the first time he led a protracted siege, and while he eventually grew to the task, he could've stopped the siege dead by taking decisive action in the beginning. In this, he was more like the opposite of Richard Coeur de Lion, not his counterpart. King Richard was a daredevil, who fought in the first rank, perhaps one of the greatest warriors of his age. Salah Ad-din created an image of himself as the designated warrior of god years before he actually came to believe this image following a severe illness, he did not treat Christians as kindly as is commonly claimed, and yet he fought more wars against his fellow muslims than against the Christians, like someone out to amass power. Still, he was not a particularly despicable individual, unlike Zangi and Baybar, who are rightly portrayed as the bloodlusty tyrants they were. Particularly nice was that Asbridge also described the origin of the Druze, and the cooperation between muslims and Christians in the Holy Land, as when Templars allowed a muslim to pray in his old moschee turned Church, even taking away the altar for the duration of his prayer, or when muslim and Christian farmers worked the same land, or when crusaders traded with Fatimids. Overall, I was impressed at how little actual hatred there was between Christians and muslims as such, despite the brutality of the wars and battles. Apparently, the Turks and the Franks, after slaughtering each other, went home without feeling like the other side had to be annihilated. Modern man seems utterly incapable of this, sometimes, he either succumbs to sentimental pacifism, or to the worst barbarism. Of violence without hatred, he cannot make sense.

The book had some weaknesses. The slaughter of the Jews along the Rhineland is attributed to Peter the Hermits troops, but The Glory of the Crusades attests it to the Count of Leiningen, and as it goes into a lot more detail on this episode, I am more inclined to follow it. Gregory VII and Urban II are both accused of dehumanizing muslims by pointing out attacks against Christian pilgrims, which I see as very unfair. The skepticism towards these attacks strikes me as biased. That there is little corroborating evidence is to be expected in such a time, it's not like anyone kept strict record of Christian pilgrims killed at the border. He overrates the elitism and isolation of the Franks, considering that many of them took foreign wifes, although he also admits that the Crusader states produced unique art that combined frankish, byzantine and even arabic influences, so it is not like he gets lost in a preconceived narrative. On the siege of Jerusalem and the resulting massacre, he seemed a bit confused, like he first wrote about the massacre and only then found the theory that the descriptions of crusaders wading through blood that ran as high as their knee, or ankle, or the bridles of their horse, are allusions to Revelation 14:20. Most importantly, perhaps, he does not do a good job on the Fourth Crusade, rushing the chapter and not describing the events that led to the sack of Constantinople, so that one does not leave with a much better understanding of the episode than the standard narrative, which was a huge disappointment to me.

None of these errors struck me as expressive of any failure as a scholar or a person, however. Everyone has his oversights, his blindspots, or research that he does not quite enjoy. I highly respect Thomas Asbridge for having written this book. It is a fine history book, and overall, remarkably unbiased, fact-driven, and thorough. Certainly, it is more worthwhile than a good deal of other books on the crusades. It does not uncritically repeat narratives, it tries not to play favorites (Asbridges admiration for King Richard was hard to overlook, but he did not bluntly excuse his famous massacre of prisoners), and it doesn't make a stupid quip every other page. I know I learned a lot from it, and so I can wholeheartedly recommend it.

[David Quijano · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land by Thomas Asbridge on a friend’s Goodreads list and decided to read it because of the subject, positive rating, and there was no wait list at the library. I love Medieval warfare, and one of my favorite subjects in history is the siege of Malta between Saint John’s Knights and the Ottoman Empire. So it was with the expectation of political intrigue, sieges, and gruesome warfare descriptions that I decided to read this book.

The Crusades has a lot of the positive traits. It is very balanced. The perspective goes back and forth between Muslim and Christian leaders. Since the subject is about the crusades, I found that especially important since so many people cite them while trying to make partisan or ideological points about the world today (something that the author is against). In fact, understanding the true historical and modern day significance was a big part of why I decided to read this.

My favorite parts of the book were the first and third crusade and the conclusion. These parts flowed well and were relatively concise. In the conclusion, the author seems to make the point that the crusades definitely affected history, but maybe not as much as some assume. We tend to see and unintentionally distort history through our modern lenses and ideas, and he makes the point that up until recently Muslims didn’t seem to view the crusades as being particularly historically significant. He similarly argues that although Christians cared about the Holy Land, they didn’t care enough to take and hold Jerusalem. They were too busy fighting each other. Honestly, this makes sense to me. The borders moved so much during this particular time period, and it is hard to see the crusades as anything other than a small blip in historical significance.

If this book about the first and third crusade with a short conclusion at the end, I would give it four stars. Unfortunately, there was a lot more. That probably makes it sound like the book is too long, but in fact, I think it was too short. The thoroughness of the first and third crusade are what make the story come alive.

In other parts of the book, I found myself wanting more information. For example, the author made the point throughout the different crusades that although both Christian and Muslim forces considered the Levant to be out of the way, relatively unimportant, and essentially frontier land, the logistics of war still favored the Muslims simply because it was easier for them to be resupplied and send troops to that part of the world. Although I get that, it would have been nice to seen numbers connected to this statement.

Another problem I had was that the author didn't go off on enough tangents. The author mentions people like Rashid ad-Din Sinan (aka the Old Man of the Mountain), but never elaborates. We know he is the leader of the Assassins and that they have an uncanny ability to infiltrate the inner circles of various leaders to have them killed, but I had to look him up on Wikipedia. Needless to say, he’s an interesting person, and I get that this book was already long, but I just felt that guys like that deserved a couple more pages.

Reading this book got me thinking about what I look for when I read history. Some of it is accuracy, a balanced perspective, and thoroughness. These are traits I often read about in other reviews of history books and there's no doubt that these things are important. But for me, these traits are necessary, but not sufficient. For me to like a history book, it has to have a strong narrative, preferably one that makes sense and is concise enough to sum up in a couple sentences. Unfortunately, you can’t do that with the crusades.

Contrary to what I often hear people say when talking about the crusades (or almost anything else), the idea of good versus bad doesn’t do this story justice. Even morally ambiguous versus morally ambiguous is an oversimplification. The crusades are very complicated. It is Game of Thrones on crack. It isn't enough to say "x" fought "y" and "y" won. "Y" might have won, but now "y" has to worry about "z" who was his ally and might be trying to grab power now that "x" is out of the way. Not to mention, "a" who is "y's" seemingly natural ally, is actually a frienemy and will probably be willing to help "z" undermine "y's" power. There is just too much backstabbing and political posturing to distil this narrative down to a comprehensible story. That isn’t inherently bad for any reason other that the various stories in this book were difficult to follow. It was easy to get lost in all the names mentioned (it also didn’t help that all these guys shared about five different names).

I would recommend The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land to anyone who was just getting into the history of the crusades and wanted a nice overview. Generally, though, I think it would be better to read a book about an individual crusade or a biography about a major player rather than trying to fit all this information into one book. I give it three stars for dragging, leaving out important information, and not being concise enough, but its best parts were very good.

[Joseph Viola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having recently completed Dan Jones’ “The Templars”, I realized how little I knew about the Crusades. Thomas Asbridge’s “The Crusades” is about as comprehensive as a single volume can get.

In just under 700 pages of text, Asbridge runs through the entirety of the Crusade era, starting with the request for aid from Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnenus and Pope Urban IIs call to arms in 1095, through the mamluk conquest of Acre in 1291.

What makes this volume so interesting is that it covers both Christian and Muslim points of view. Too often, the western point of view prevails, but Asbridge gives both sides of the history equal weight.

Asbridge also fills in a lot of gaps about the patch work nature of the Outremer states as well as the factionalism of the Abbasids on the frontier of their territory, allowing first the Zangids and then the Ayyubids to become the dominant powers in Syria and the Levant.

Asbridge also has a very interesting concluding chapter where he covers how the crusades were thought of in the subsequent centuries, and how only in the last 100 years or so has the memory of the crusades been used for nationalistic, religious, and political gain.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in a complete history of the crusades, even for someone with little to no prior knowledge of the era.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land, by Thomas Asbridge, is a broad overview of the major Crusades by Latin Christian states under the guidance (albeit loosely) of the Papal States. The ultimate goals of the Crusades ranged from taking back the holy city if Jerusalem from Muslim control, propping up subsequent Catholic states in the region, and other times targeted fellow Christian states (the Fourth Crusade - directed at the Roman Empire in Constantinople). The Crusades by no means had universal support, and were often used as excuses to extend temporal power, compete with rival monarchs and achieve prestigious military victories. These objectives often mixed with the religious notions of Crusade.

The First Crusade was a bit of a spontaneous construction, although planning for something of its kind - as well as a few expeditions by European counts had existed previously. The Roman Emperor Alexios Komnenos had requested aid in his war against the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia. In 1095, Pope Urban II answered the call, and preachers across Europe began asking for aid from devout Christian soldiers. The mustering quickly became overwhelming - thousands of lesser nobles and their retinues answered the call, and a large force was mustered and marched toward Constantinople. The Emperor Alexios was alarmed at the size of the force, most lesser nobles and company from the Frankish regions, but hoped to used their martial prowess to reconquer parts of Anatolia. Mistrust, however, did exist between Christian camps. A rivalry between Provencal forces from southern France, and Norman forces from Northern France/Sicily emerged. And the Byzantines did not trust any of the crusading forces.

The Crusaders agreed to return all conquered lands to Byzantium, and quickly overran the important fortress of Nicaea in Anatolia. The two rival armies then split, one marching East toward Edessa, and the other south toward Antioch. The Eastern army succeeded in defeating a Seljuk force and captured Edessa and surrounding lands, forming the County of Edessa as a Crusading state. Similarly, the Anotiochene army marched on the Antioch, and subjected it to a grueling siege, eventually successful. After this, the force marched on to Jerusalem, taking that city as well, and subjecting it to brutal slaughter. New Crusader states - the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem were formed.

The conquests were so successful because of disunity in the Islamic world. The temporal power of the Caliph in Baghdad had waned over the years leading up to the crusades, and the Levant was a region contested by rival forces in Aleppo, Damascus and Fatmid Egypt. This disunity negated a unified response by Arab rival powers, and indeed the Crusaders even managed to sign a treaty of friendship (albeit a brief one) with Fatmid Egypt. This disunity allowed the new fledgling crusader states - weak in temporal power, low on manpower and lacking control over the countryside of their new states - to consolidate control. The new states quickly sought to solidify control over the surrounding areas, as well as the Levantine coast. Cities such as Beirut, Jaffa, Acre and so on were captured and fortified. The Crusaders pushed inland as well, securing Palestine, the Jordan region and extended territories in modern Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. Relations between the Crusaders and Fatmid Egypt soured, however, after Egypt retained control of Ascalon, a key fortress on the Palestinian coast and the "Gateway" to Egypt as a staging point to cross the Sinai Desert.

Islamic forces began to grow closer together in the face of this new threat from Europe, although rivalries still existed. This gave rise to a new dynasty in the region. The Zangri's - Turkish warriors working under the Caliph of Baghdad, began to consolidate control in Syria. Zangri would eventually succeed in destroying the County of Edessa - sparking the Second Crusade - an unmitigated disaster where Christian forces divided into two, and stoically (and perhaps foolishly) marched to their deaths at the hands of Seljuk warriors in the interior of Turkey. Meanwhile, political squabbles between the states of the Levant allowed Zangri's successor - Nur ad-Din, to begin to chip away at the Crusading states. Much of Palestine was overrun, and the county of Tripoli severely reduced in size. The greatest threat to the Christian states, however, was the coming of Saladin - who invaded Fatmid Egypt for his lord Nur ad-Din, and then declared autonomy. Eventually, Saladin would succeed in taking both Damascus and Aleppo, and extending his control over Western Iraq as well. He would also succeed in briefly destroying the Crusading sates (except Antioch), occupying Jerusalem and starting the Third Crusade.

The Third Crusade may be the most famous after the First. Great monarchs like Philip of France and Richard Lionheart of England/Aquitaine would march on the East, joined by the might Frederick Barbarossa, Holy Roman Emperor in Germany. Richard and Philip were both reluctant, at first to join the Crusade. Both were temporarily united in reducing the power of Henry the I, Richards father and King of England. Richard succeeded in defeating his father, and eventually took over as King of England, controlling lands also in southern France. Philip was King of France and eventual rival of Richard, looking to take back control of French lands controlled by the English Monarchs. Both, however, out aside their rivalries in Europe to continue pursuing them in the Holy Lands. Richard and Philip took ships to the Levant, while Frederick of Germany marched across Anatolia. Richard stopped to support family members in dynastic squabbles in Sicily, and also defeated the Greek rulers of Cyprus, before landing in the Holy Lands to assist in the epic siege of Acre. Philip had been their earlier, building large modern siege weapons to try and reduce Acres walls. Saladin was camped nearby, constantly harassing Crusader forces and trying to relieve the siege with men and supplies. Frederick marched East, encountering resistance from the Byzantines and Seljuk Turks, but swiftly overcame these in siege warfare against the Greeks, and decisive skirmishing against the Turks. However, tragedy befell, as Frederick crossed a river, he slipped and fell from his horse, and drowned.

The Third Crusade ended up being a largely successful venture, especially for Richard. He subdued Cyprus and created a new Crusader state there. Philip left quickly after the fall of Acre, his quest fulfilled. But Richard stayed on, reconquering much of coastal Palestine and Lebanon for Jerusalem - although he fell short of taking the City itself. Saladin was largely on the back foot, and after his resounding success early on, he lost some territory to the Crusaders, and saw his dynasty shaken by competing factions. Asbridge continues by looking briefly at the Fourth Crusade, which never even reached the Levant - instead attacking Byzantine possessions in Greece and Hungarian forces in Zara (Croatia) at the behest of the Crusades Venetian financiers. The Fifth and Sixth Crusade did reach the Holy Land, and managed to briefly reconquer the Holy City for Jerusalem, before the Crusader states finally crumbled under concentrated Mamluk assault.

Asbridge has done an excellent job examining the Crusades. The States created in the Levant were largely Feudal in nature, and temporal in power, even though they were largely created by religious fervor from Europe. The States squabbled amongst themselves just as much as against there common enemies, and ultimately succumbed to concentrated and unified assault by a large Islamic power. They took advantage of weak and fractured Muslim rule, but were unable to create a lasting impression on the region, and were ultimately swallowed whole. After the crusading period - which lasted roughly from the 12th to 14th centuries, the tide of Crusaders faltered in the Levant, and these regions ultimately became provinces of large Muslim powers, first Ayubbid, then Mamluk and finally Ottoman, for centuries. Asbridge looks at factors affecting both Muslim powers in the region, and temporal Christian states that both built and became the Crusader states of Outremer. He also examines scant evidence of cross cultural exchanges and trading between these seeming enemies, and notes little changed for the subjects of the region beyond marauding armies.

Asbridge focuses heavily on the period between the First and Third Crusade, largely examining the composition of the Crusader states, as well as the growth of Saladin and others in the region as they sought to unify Islamic power in the face of Crusader assaults, and form a lasting and cohesive dynasty composing land from Egypt to Iraq - no easy feat at this time. The Fifth and Sixth Crusade are only briefly examined. All things told, this is a very interesting book with a comprehensive examination of the history of both the construction and destruction of Europe's Crusading states, and how these states affected the region. Easily recommended for fans of Medieval history, and those looking for a good and unbiased overview of the Crusading period.

[John Nellis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good narrative of the Crusades. It was a nice read , I learned a lot of things I hadn't known about the Crusades. It read like a good novel and wasn't slowed by an overload of information . This would be a good starting point for someone wanting to learn about the Crusades. I especially enjoyed learning about the Mongol invasion of the middle east. An event I knew very little about. Mr. Asbridge does spend time discussing the currant conflict in the Middle east a the end of the book,and how some factions call the Western forces crusaders. This is a recent development used by extremists to try and incite anti western feelings. This book looks at everything past and present concerning the Crusades. It deals with the Crusader States, and the personalities and people who lived in them. It covers each Crusade, and many of the larger than life Kings and generals who led them. It does a very good job explaining the Arab side of things, with a very good summary of all the major leaders. He does a through job detailing Saladin's life and tries to explain his possible motivations of why he did things the way he did. All in all, a good read on the Crusades, with plenty of information, and facts ,that also reads like a good novel.

[Sonny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have little recall of having studied the Crusades in high school or college. Thomas Asbridge’s book is a great introduction to an interesting and significant period of history. His book covers the years from the launching of the First Crusade in 1095 to 1291, when the Crusader states finally fell and the Latin Christians were expelled from their kingdom in Syria (other campaigns in Spain and Eastern Europe continued for several centuries after 1291).

Asbridge begins his account by exploring the origins of the idea of “Holy War,” going back to the last days of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. He also examines the Islamic concept of “Jihad.” Notably, the word "Crusade" was not created until more than 100 years after the Crusades ended.

The First Crusade was launched by Pope Urban II in 1095. Asbridge spends some time exploring the reasons behind the Crusades. Unlike the response of the US after 9/11, the Crusades were not a response to any aggression on the part of the Islamic world. Jerusalem had already been in Muslim hands for 400 years without problem when the Pope issued his call to arms; Christian pilgrims had long been free to travel to the Holy Land on pilgrimage. The first Crusade had more to do with the consolidation and extension of papal authority over the feuding warlords of western Europe. What then would lead the warlords and peasants to pursue a Crusade against the Levant? The society of the late 11th century was society "saturated with religious belief." The Church's message was startlingly simple: one cannot avoid the consequences of sin. Urban II offered the people a means of salvation: All their sins would be cancelled if they went on Crusade. In other words, the Crusaders were offered the remission of their sins by redirecting their energies towards the “enemies” of God. At a time in church history when few Bibles existed and most people could not read the Bible for themselves, there was a terrible fear of damnation. Church murals often depicted horrible scenes of Hell. Although the concept of “earning” their salvation is wholly unbiblical, it proved to be an effective recruitment tactic. So, who were these enemies of God? Emperor Alexius in Constantinople made an appeal to arms to Urban. The Saljuq Turks, semi-nomadic invaders, had been moving into and taking over the eastern regions of Byzantium. Thus, were the warriors called to arms. What was surprising was the astonishing success of this first mission. Against all odds and at a terrible human cost, Jerusalem was captured in 1099 by a European army fighting thousands of miles from home. Four separate Crusade states—the kingdom of Jerusalem, the principality of Antioch, and the regions of Tripoli and Edessa—were created. The problem, however, was that these then had to be defended against their Muslim enemies.

Unlike the First Crusade, the second Crusade of 1147-1149 was led by two of the greatest monarchs of Europe—Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany. This Second Crusade was opposed by the Zangid dynasty in Syria and the powerful, formidable figure of Nur al-Din. It failed, largely due to the sense of entitlement that surrounded it.

The third Crusade of 1189-92 is perhaps the most famous of the crusades. It was marked by a confrontation between Richard the Lionheart, the king of England, and Saladin, the mighty Ayyubid sultan. Despite his ability to unite Islam, Saladin had "neither the will nor resources to complete the conquest of the Palestinian coastline." Nevertheless, the third Crusade proved inconclusive.

The Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in a campaign to install a short-lived puppet regime intended to extend papal rule over the eastern branches of Christendom. However, the crusaders later faced a much more ruthless foe in the Mamluk Sultan Baibars, who finally drove the Franks/Latin Christians from Palestine in 1291.

This is a grim read. The narrative is replete with such details as decapitated heads of prisoners being paraded on spikes before a furious enemy—suffering that was deliberately inflicted. Some of the sieges were marked by people "tormented by the madness of starvation.” Asbridge documents the near continuous in-fighting, greed and ambition that plagued both sides (and ultimately led to the downfall of the Crusader states). The book is exhaustively researched (Asbridge is a medieval history scholar at Queen Mary University of London). He provides an analysis that carefully considers both sides in the conflict. In addition, amid the horrors of war, this is also a thought-provoking read that sheds light on the past but also paints a picture that contains some important historical truths. He concludes that the crusades are an alarming example of the "potential for history to be appropriated, misrepresented and manipulated" for political ends.

[WIll Maxson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was interested in this book for three reasons. First, I love medieval history. Second, I am a Christian, and the Crusades feature in many Christian apologetics books. “What about all the horrible things Christians have done in history?” is a perennial question and the Crusades are usually Exhibit #1. Third, I have many Muslim friends, so I want to better understand this history for the sake of my relationships.

I found the book to be objective. I read some reviews saying that it was liberal, politically correct, anti-Christian, etc. I think someone would have to be a raging idealogue to think that. I suppose if you want a book that says the Crusaders were noble heroes defending the West in an early version of the war on terror, you will not appreciate this book. But I found it objective.

Now, I hate political correctness, and I’m at least open to the argument that the Crusades were defensive in nature. Yet again, even in light of my "pro-Christian bias,” I found the book very objective. There is plenty of good and bad documented on both sides of the conflict. At one point, the author argues that Muslims living in the Crusader states of Palestine were better off than those living in nearby Muslim states. So, I didn’t find the book to be particularly anti-Christian.

Regarding the idea that the Crusades were defensive, I’ve seen this argued in recent apologetics works (Confronting Christianity by Rebecca McLaughlin for example).

After reading this book, I can see some truth in the argument. The Levant was, after all, Byzantine Christian territory before Islam even existed, so Islam had to have conquered it at some point.

However, I think a stronger argument, from a Christian apologetics standpoint, is merely that the Crusaders were cultural Christians. The Crusades may or may not have been defensive, but the Crusaders are still not people with whom I really want to associate my own faith. A few examples to support my feeling that way:

(1) The rapacious sacking of Jerusalem by the Crusaders during the First Crusade

(2)Richard the Lionheart executing 2,000 Muslim prisoners, after promising them safe passage, during the 3rd Crusade

(3)The sacking of Constantinople during the 4th Crusade

(4)The regular weirdness of medieval Catholicism (buying indulgences, fascination with relics, shrines, and pilgrimages, promises of forgiveness of sins for participation in the Crusades, etc.)

Because of all this, I would rather just say that the Crusaders were cultural Christians. At that time, religion and government were integrated. Every society on the planet would invoke religion in time of war. These were conflicts between two expansionist religious societies. They represent a small slice of all the conflicts during the medieval era. One would be hard pressed to find any war, from the beginning of recorded history until the 18th century, when the participants on both sides did not believe themselves to be fighting in the name of their respective religions.

The Crusades shock our sensibilities today because of the stark contrast with the person of Christ. The picture of someone waging war in the name of a man who died for his enemies, is singularly outrageous and unconscionable.

Yet there is another sense in which these conflicts were not unusual for the time period, or for most of human history for that matter. Ironically, it is the influence of Christian ideals on society which causes us to find the Crusades uniquely offensive. The author said, “By 1095 Muslims and Christians had been waging war against one another for centuries; no matter how far it was in the past, Islam undoubtedly had seized Christian territory, including Jerusalem…On the other hand, the immediate context in which the crusades were launched gave no obvious clue that a titanic transnational war of religion was either imminent or inevitable. Islam was not about to initiate a grand offensive against the West. Nor were the Muslim rulers of the Near East engaging in acts akin to ethnic cleansing, or subjecting religious minority groups to widespread and sustained oppression. There may at times have been little love lost between Christian and Muslim neighbors, and perhaps there were outbreaks of intolerance in the Levant, but there was, in truth, little to distinguish all this from the endemic political, military and social struggles of the age…”

One interesting takeaway was the realization that there were long periods of peace during this era. Following the first Crusade, there were Frankish kingdoms established in the Levant which lasted, in some form or another, for about 200 years. This time period was only punctuated by occasional conflict, so in that sense, naming the entire period after the conflict is a bit of a misnomer.

A final interesting takeaway was the modern politicization of this history. Asbridge argues that until the 20th century, the Crusades were simply not that big of a deal for most Muslims. It was a relatively small border conflict, one of many, in the distant past. Saladin’s tomb in Syria was quite dilapidated until a revival of interest took place during Arab nationalist movements in the 20th century.

Another humorous example of this revived interest for political purposes – Saddam Hussein once published a children’s book about Saladin in which he referred to himself as “the second Saladin.” The Crusades continue to be dredged up out of history and co-opted to support the agenda of Islamic fundamentalist organizations today.

The Crusades were not a story of oppressed Middle Easterners defensing themselves against evil European colonizers. Nor were they an early battle in the war on terror. The real history defies modern political agendas.

Note: I rate books on a bell curve. 3 stars is above average, with 4 and 5 reserved for only my all time favorites.

[Kyle B · Rating 4 out of 5]

An in-depth work of the crusades with an attempt to write both European and Islamic points of view.

Godfrey of Bullon, Baybars, Nur al din, Saladin, Baldwin IV the Lepor King, Louis IX the Saint King and of course Richard the Lion Heart. The fourth crusades sack of Constantinople, the Muslim Mamluks defeat the Mongol Empire, the battle of Hattin… so many influential people and events. So much history completely unknown to me. To this point much of what I knew about the crusades came from popular movies. Curse you Robin Hood and Dan Brown!

Slow for the first few chapters but I loved the pacing and depth of story shared with each of the crusades. Highly recommended for someone in my situation wanting to understand more of this time in history.

[Sean-Paul Kosina · Rating 5 out of 5]

“… when Latin crusading armies arrived in the Near East to wage what essentially were frontier wars, they were not actually invading the heartlands of Islam. Instead, they were fighting for control of a land that, in some respects, was also a Muslim frontier…”

“The once fashionable myth that crusaders were self-serving, disinherited, land-hungry younger sons must be discarded. Crusading was instead an activity that could bring spiritual and material rewards, but was in the first instance both an intimidating and extremely costly activity. Devotion inspired Europe to crusade, and in the long years to come the First Crusaders proved time and again that their most powerful weapon was a shared sense of purpose and indestructible spiritual resolution.”

I’m really glad I got around to this book. The author’s prose is easy to understand, especially when it comes to the reader to visualize the narrative as it goes. One may need to pull out a map or research certain terms and characters, but that’s the fun part! Definitely recommend for anyone who may have even the slightest interest in the various Crusades and it’s campaigns, the politics from the Caliphates and Christian Europe, and the cultural/power struggle in the Levant, the Nile, and other regions.

[Alexander Tyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Provides a detailed history of the crusades with a major focus on the first and third crusades. Asbridge details major events and battles from both Catholic and Muslim perspectives and delves deeper into common historical misconceptions. I think Asbridge wraps it up succinctly by explaining how little of an effect these conflicts had on tensions between the two faiths until the early 20th century, as Muslims of the Middle East long referred to the two century conflict as just another invasion among many. Asbridge also details how the crusades increased the spread of technology and trade between the Middle East and Europe as a myriad of Muslim-Christian alliances were formed. Finally, Asbridge offers refined context for the word “jihad” that we could all benefit from understanding through this historical lens.

[Jarek Schmanski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Remarkably well balanced and comprehensive story of the Crusades.

I came into this book with a sparse knowledge of these seminal events and the associated time period. By the final page, I possessed a firm grasp of not just the events but the widespread ramifications of the Crusades on the Medieval age.

The author goes to great length not to present a one-sided account of the history. He devotes considerable time to both describing both Frankish and Muslim rulers, their motivations, and their impact on the broader Holy Wars. I found it fascinating to learn about notable Muslim figures and their respective empires (e.g. Saladin and his Ayyubid Caliphate), perhaps even more so than their Frankish counterparts.

Of course, the author covers not only the military history but the theological struggle, as well. I was captivated by the discussion of the evolution of Papal authority and the popular fervor incited by Jihad. Although the descriptions of battles was not as striking or detailed as some other authors (e.g. Adrian Goldsworthy), I still found the accounts to be well-written and interesting.

My only gripe with this book is the prioritization of events. To recount all eight crusades and the associated Muslim responses is a Herculean effort, yet I can't help but think there could've been more even coverage. The centerpiece of the story is the Third Crusade, the epic clash between Saladin and Richard the Lionheart. Understandably, this takes a solid portion of the book. However, the intense focus on the Third Crusade comes at the expense of other, equally pivotal events. For instance, the Fourth Crusade, in which the Franks were redirected by Venice and sacked Constantinople, receives only a few paltry pages. What?? I understand the primary focus of the book in on the Wars in the Holy Land, but the collapse of Byzantium played a crucial role in overall Christian weakness in the Near East.

Besides this structural critique, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It read incredibly well and was fascinating from the very beginning.

4.25/5 - highly recommend for anyone interested in the time period.