The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades (Oxford Illustrated Histories) |
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The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades (Oxford Illustrated Histories)
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by Jonathan Riley-Smith
Sales Rank: 211698
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$8.25
At Amazon
on 6-17-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 470 pages
Published by: Oxford University Press, USA; New Ed edition May 24, 2001
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0192854283
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0192854285
Book Dimensions:
9.6 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
Weighs: 2.3 pounds
From Booklist
In 1095 Pope Urban II granted absolutions to whomever would reclaim the Holy Land for Christendom. With that assurance began two centuries of Crusades, and the story, in contemporary chronicles, artwork, and castellated ruins, is well treated in this interpretation of the movement to take up the cross. The subject has stirred from historiographical dormancy, says editor Riley-Smith, who ably introduces the definitional questions--What is a Crusade? Who became a Crusader?--and then turns the chapters over to a dozen specialists. They analyze in detail the complex religious, economic, and military aspects, emphasizing the immediate instigation of one Crusade or another--often a Muslim counter-Crusade like Saladin's recapture of Jerusalem in 1187--while reiterating the profound piety and concern for salvation on which the whole process rested. It seems an odd combination of compassion and conquest, aptly expressed in knightly orders such as Hospitallers or the Teutonic Order, so elusive to the modern sensibility. These historians, though, dissolve that psychological barrier, interpreting what impelled the pilgrims, the Muslim reaction, and the political course of holy conflict up through the fall of the last Crusader polity--Malta--in 1798. Gilbert Taylor
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Review
`this volume is a valuable overview of the subject this book is not aimed primarily at the historian of war. However, it contains much of value for anyone interested in the organisation and practice of warfare in the medieval period.' Matthew Bennett, War in History, 2000 7 (3).
`makes the results of the recent academic study of the Crusades accessible to a wide section of the general public and succeeds in conveying that this is a living and developing subject, which has far from exhausted its potential.' THES
Reader Reviews
« The Oxford History of » could suggest some grey bearded professors laboriously writing history nobody but them would understand, but far from it, Jonathan Riley-Smith has managed to edit the erudite contributions to this book into a pleasant and interesting format. Some pages, very few actually, are a little heavy going but most chapters are fascinating. They assume a reasonably smart reader nobody buys a history of the Crusades if he or she is exclusively into hard rock or soccer but for the average person with an interest in history and a probably bad recollection of the Crusades as they were taught to teenagers some decades ago, this a perfect book. It requires no more than a general idea of the whos who at the time and even that is made very clear chapter after chapter. I particularly enjoyed the sections describing the Crusades from the point of view of the people who were at the receiving end. Yet the book is balanced and does not fall into the stereotype of picturing the crusaders as greedy bad guys, turned loose on the local populace by manipulative popes and clerics promising them that past and future sins would be forgiven, although there was quite a bit of that. The chapters on the military orders are great and the final chapter describes the later perception of the Crusades throughout history with plenty of surprises: who knows that Voltaire was scathingly contemptuous of the crusaders? Think of it, though, it fits the great mans view of the world neatly. The illustrations are very good and abundant. Anyone with an interest in the Crusades should read this book.
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The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades (Oxford Illustrated Histories)
Available from Amazon
Price: $8.25
Updated on 6-17-2008.
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