by Jonathan Riley-Smith
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Product Description
This lively, comprehensive history provides a wealth of fascinating detail about the Crusades and the politics and personalities behind them. This new edition includes revisions throughout as well as a new Preface and Afterword in which Jonathan Riley-Smith surveys recent developments in the field and examines responses to the Crusades in different periods, from the Romantics to the Islamic world today, making this the standard and authoritative account of the Crusades for years to come.
From reviews of the first edition:
“Everything is here: the crusades to the Holy Land, and against the Albigensians, the Moors, the pagans in Eastern Europe, the Turks, and the enemies of the popes. Riley-Smith writes a beautiful, lucid prose, . . . [and his book] is packed with facts and action.”—Choice “A concise, clearly written synthesis . . . by one of the leading historians of the crusading movement. ”—Robert S. Gottfried, Historian “A lively and flowing narrative [with] an enormous cast of characters that is not a mere catalog but a history. . . . A remarkable achievement.”—Thomas E. Morrissey, Church History “Superb.”—Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Speculum “A first-rate one-volume survey of the Crusading movement from 1074 . . . to 1798.”—Southwest Catholic
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Well worth the reading., 2007-12-18
This book covers all the known wars that can be called Crucades. Not only does the author cover the four most widely known crusades to the Holy Land by Western Europe but also some of the lesser known crusades. This book is very informative, well written and compiled with in a time line format. This book is well worth the time needed to read it.
I lent my copy of it out to a student and never got it back so obviously he liked it too!
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Massive, Informative, and Difficult, 2007-08-30
Granting each of the previous reviewers problems with this book, it still stands as the current best one volume history of the Crusades that I have encountered. Furthermore, as Crusade history has become a booming industry since 9/11, this book is also published by Continuum in both paperback and hardback with another printing coming later this year. There are some interesting reviews of this book under the Continuum paperback edition listing here on Amazon that the reader may wish to consult. There are no footnotes, almost no white space and the print density is weak. The publisher, Yale NB, has chosen to turn a larger 392 page hardback into a compact 357 page paperback. I will assume this was done to keep costs down. So being forewarned if you wish to understand the Crusades and have some background in the history of the Middle Ages in Europe and the Middle East, buy this book and read it. If you have no background in the history of the Middle Ages, it might be best to find one of the many excellent one volume considerations of the entire era and read it before this book. You will be rewarded with far greater insight into the author's analysis of the Crusades.
As the crusades are a specialist topic within the history of the Middle Ages, the author assumes that you, the reader, are conversant with such issues as the investiture crisis and church reform of the era for example. This may cause some confusion for the casual reader. However, there is still much to be learned here regardless of your knowledge of the Middle Ages. Further, Riley-Smith is a "pluralist." And this is a "plural history" in that it includes material on the Baltic, Spanish, Italian political, anti-heretical and other permutations of the Crusades as well as those directed at the holy lands and the Muslims. Each chapter within itself provides a reasonable narrative history of the topic under discussion. But to cover the subject fully, various specialized topics are considered at length that chop up the flow of material. The material is generally chronologically arranged but in no sense is this eloquent narrative prose. And yet out of all this, a detailed picture of the crusading movement and Middle Age Christian piety emerge. And, that unique European Middle Age Christian fervor is what drove the Crusades and make them explicable in a fashion that is not riddled by conceptual anachronisms.
It is this reader's opinion that only with a plural historical framework can the Crusades be considered adequately to be understood as a function of their own time and culture. This Riley-Smith accomplishes with more credibility than any other one volume history of the Crusades that I have read so far. And, I have read most of this material. A fascinating short historiographical essay closes the text, and a remarkable and detailed bibliography is provided with extensive helpful commentary from the author. If you have an axe to grind with the Catholic Church, look elsewhere. If you are looking for supposed contemporary relevance in the Crusades, other books will provide you with far more of what you want. If you are sure that the Crusades were an imperialistic and proto-colonial activity, this book is not for you. If you find the Crusades to be the last massive act of European barbarism, read Runciman. In remarkable detail, Christendom's decent into armed intolerance and coercion is explained and illuminated by this work. This is not a happy story, and one wonders what the man from Galilee who said, "Love your enemies...," would think about all this. This book is near mandatory reading for any reader wishing to have more than a passing acquaintance with the history of the Crusades.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 better do you homework, 2007-08-09
"The Crusades: A History" by Jonathan Riley-Smith is a dull but thorough retelling of the crusades from their inception by Pope Urban II in 1095 to the very last crusading vows made in the early eighteenth century. His narrative is filled with names and places that speed by and unless one has some degree of familiarity with them before reading, they become a blur. Being a reader of historical narratives I expected more about the actual crusades than the events leading up to and surrounding them. I forced myself to keep reading just say I'd read it but there were only a handful of pages where I was able to give my full attention and interest. My suggestion: know some people and places before reading this. You will get no explanations as you go.
24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
 Comprehensive but dull, 2006-01-18
Jonathan Ridley-Smith's "The Crusades: A History" is a comprehensive but dull look at the history of the Crusades from the 11th century until the last vestiges of the crusading movement died in the 19th century. Smith is a pluralist - he covers all of the Crusades, including those in Spain, Italy, and the Baltic area. Although this history is comprehensive in its coverage, its dry writing made it a difficult read.
Smith fails to bring the Crusades to life in his narrative. I never felt that he showed how a small group of Europeans managed to gain a foothold in the Holy Land and hold it for so many generations, and he never really illustrated life in the Crusader states. Also, his writing presupposes a certain knowledge and understanding of medieval societies and the medieval Church. Many terms and concepts about the medieval world and church are not explained adequately - if at all - and this makes it difficult for the general reader to fully understand this work.
This book is comprehensive and apparently well-researched. It would probably serve as a good resource for someone already familiar with the time period or the Crusades, but it is a difficult read for a general reader.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
The Crusades made accessible to the general public, 2005-12-29
On an impulse I purchased this work by Jonathan Riley-Smith in early 2004. At first, although I found the content interesting and thorough, it did not engage my simple mind at the time which up until that point had been lulled into more of an escapist mode with works of science fiction. However, that was before the release of the popular cinematic event known as, 'The Kingdom of Heaven'. After its viewing I was concerned that the historical content of the feature film may not have been completely accurate. Therefore, I dusted off my copy of this book and began to read it avidly. Within its covers I was able to discover the true events before, during and after the fall of Jerusalem into the hands of Saladin in 1187. I became acquainted with the true characters of the First Crusade and with those that followed after. While the film previously mentioned tends to show bias and even gravely negative in its approach to the Templar knights in particular, the work here refutes any such fanciful history. Riley-Smith is even-handed in his approach to all participants in the many and various crusades showing partiality to none. Further, I appreciated the style with which Dr. Riley-Smith wrote his book. It flows easily so much so that it is fitting for, IMHO, readers aged 13 and older. This is by no means a children's book, however. Far from it in fact. I would encourage anyone with a genuine interest in the facts of the often misunderstood and misrepresented Crusades to acquaint yourself with this, in my opinion, essential work. Within its covers you will find that the initial motivations for the First Crusade centered around the threat of Muslim warriors on the Eastern borders of Christendom and the endangerment of pilgrimage routes to and from the Holy Land. Further, you will be introduced thoroughly into the motivations and to the growth of the only unitive authority of Western Europe at that time, the Catholic Church. Also, you will learn of the intrigue and political manueverings of the Byzantine emperors and the early Crusade leaders as they made their way into the disputed territories. After the fall of Jerusalem to the Franks you will learn how the Latin Kings maintained order giving to the rise of the military orders. Jonathan Riley-Smith does an excellent job of describing the fortunes and misfortunes of the Levantine society while surrounded by a growing threat from the east. He carries the reader easily through and explaining the events of the Crusades in all of their forms from the Latin liberation to the reconquest of Spain to the Balkan conquests and the efforts taken to preserve religious unity and order throughout Western civilization. Ample ink is also spilled concerning the reactions of the Muslims to the Crusaders including, in like manner, the political intriguies and motivations within the varied Muslim dynasties and camps. He shows in great detail that no one group was completely without error in the almost 800 year old struggle even showing that there was much fighting to be had for Christian vs. Muslim, Christian vs. Pagan, Christian vs. Christian, Christian vs. Jew, Muslim vs. Jew, Muslim vs. Muslim, Muslim vs. Pagan, etc. Further, there is much evidence that often each monotheistic society would side with one another against the third in defense as well as in offense. (a side note: I found it intriguing that even Protestants, at the time no friend of the Catholic Church, cheered on the primarily Catholic defeat of the Muslim navy at the historic Battle of Lepanto thus ensuring their own survivability) Within its covers I discovered much detail of things I certainly were not aware of having only information based on the major media, Hollywood and the often unreliable Internet. I highly recommend this work to anyone who would like to get the straight facts of this prolonged struggle and also of its lasting effects both positive and negative on the formation of modern civilization as we know it.
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