Publisher's Synopsis
A spectacular new global history of the Crusades.
The Middle East at the time of the Crusades was more than simply religious warfare - it was extraordinarily complex region, home to many cultures, religions and seismic changes. Information, stories, technologies, intellectual ideas, weapons, and architectural techniques - they all changed hands with astonishing rapidity as these societies fought, traded, conducted diplomacy, married, vented hatred and established friendships.
Nicholas Morton's pathbreaking new account explores the territories established by the crusaders from their foundation in 1097 to the fall of Jerusalem in 1187, showing how they both disrupted and integrated into this dynamic landscape. Rather than framing events from just one or two perspectives, the narrative unfolds through a kaleidoscope of viewpoints: a Byzantine renegade, a crusader princess, a Turkish matriarch, a young Arab nobleman, a Syriac archbishop, Saladin's leading commander, and the vizier of Egypt. Their lives reveal both the entangled nature of this era's conflict and the sheer force with which these colliding cultures influenced one another, and the world to come.
