Review:
`Powerful, assured and epic . . . departs radically - and successfully - from tradition . . . brilliantly exposes Muslim strategies and motivations' --James McConnachie, Sunday Times
`A compelling narrative that resonates inescapably with contemporary events . . . A masterful conclusion' --Malise Ruthven, Observer
`A dramatic and powerful look at both sides of the story . . . Our choice of the best recent books'
-- Sunday Times
`Brilliant, authoritative, and accessible, The Crusades is a must read. Asbridge balances impeccable scholarship with a gifted storyteller's engaging voice'
--Professor John L. Esposito, Director of the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University, and author of The Future of Islam
'Asbridge can't help but tell a ripping yarn, often breezily dramatic, whipping the narrative along' -- The Times
'Exciting, stirring, moving, horrific and a whole lot of other things as well . . . this book gives us narrative history at its best'
--Scotsman
Why Islam crushed the crusaders: Thomas Asbridge explains why, for all their celebrated victories and burning religious zeal, the Christian warrior's attempts to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control in the Middle Ages were ultimately doomed to failure. --BBC History Magazine
After 9/11 a flurry of histories of the crusades were commissioned but the story told by Thomas Asbridge, who teaches at Queen Mary's, is both compelling and revisionist. Told from both the Christian and Muslim perspectives, the narrative puts forward a balanced, though not sentimental, view of a conflict used by modern polemicists to justify holy wars. Asbridge presents a new BBC Two history of the crusades starting on January 18. --Daily Telegraph
About the Author:
Thomas Asbridge is Reader in Medieval History at Queen Mary University of London, and an internationally renowned expert on the history of the Crusades. His acclaimed The First Crusade is also available from Simon & Schuster.
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