Название: The Crusades: A History, 4th edition
Автор: Jonathan Riley-Smith, Susanna A. Throop
Издательство: Bloomsbury Academic
Год: 2023
Страниц: 481
Язык: английский
Формат: pdf (true)
Размер: 41.9 MB

This fully updated and expanded edition of The Crusades: A History provides an authoritative exploration of one of the most significant topics in medieval and religious history. From the First Crusade right up to the present day, Jonathan Riley-Smith and Susanna Throop investigate the phenomenon of crusading and the crusaders themselves.

This book attempts to provide as comprehensive a history of the crusades as is possible in a single volume. Its intended audiences are upper-level undergraduates, graduate/postgraduate students, and scholars who have need of a general historical survey. In a landscape positively crammed with single-volume histories of the crusades, it is distinguished by: a deepened engagement with the approach of pluralism and, as a result, the length and breadth of the narrative; avoidance of a grand or centralizing narrative structure; careful structure and organization; and attention to questions of language and terminology. Both authors are confident in students’ and instructors’ ability to handle complicated and ambiguous histories, and points where more research is particularly needed have been called out, not least in the hope that some students may rise to the challenge.

This book also stands out as one that has endured and yet changed significantly over time. Each edition has differed significantly from the one prior and historiographical change can be traced through the editions. The book in all its editions thus forms a coherent and transparent case study of historiographical change in the field of crusade studies. At the same time, the central idea at the heart of the first edition of the book has remained intact. This central premise is that while it is possible to outline a general definition of crusading that would have been recognizable to medieval contemporaries and that would extend well beyond military expeditions to Jerusalem, such a definition would not cover many other engagements which have to be considered in this book.. . . And yet all these were so closely associated with crusading that it would be absurd to treat them separately. It is best, I believe, to consider crusades as expressions of a crusading movement which outlasted the crusades.

Now in its 4th edition, this landmark text includes:

- A new and more balanced book structure with updated terminology designed to help instructors and students alike
- Deliberate incorporation of a wider range of historical perspectives, including Byzantine and Islamic historiographies, crusading against Christians and within Europe, women and gender, and the crusades in the context of Afro-Eurasian history
- A dramatically expanded discussion of crusading from the sixteenth through twenty-first centuries
- A fully up-to-date bibliographic essay
- Additional textboxes, maps, and images

The Crusades: A History is the definitive text on the subject for students and scholars alike.

“The Crusades remains the 'go-to' text for anyone interested in the history of the crusades. This wide-ranging and engaging updated edition is grounded in the superlative scholarship of Susanna Throop and the late Jonathan Riley-Smith, and offers new insights into the nature, practice and memory of holy war. A classic.” - Megan Cassidy-Welch, Professor of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Australian Catholic University, Australia