Crusaders: The Complete History

Summary of the book "The Crusaders: The Complete History" by Jones D.: A comprehensive history of the Crusades, told by the bestselling author of "The Templars" and "The Plantagenets" Dan Jones. For more than a thousand years, Christians and Muslims lived side by side, sometimes in peace, sometimes at war. But when Christian armies captured Jerusalem in 1099, the most infamous period of confrontation between the two religions began. Expanding the usual time frame, Jones turns to the origins of Christian-Muslim relations in the 8th century and traces the influence of the Crusades to the present day. He also expands the geography of the events, taking the reader to Spain, North Africa, southern France, and the Baltic states, where so-called enemies of the Church also lived. Telling the stories of individual participants in the Crusades, Jones shows these centuries of conflict not only from the perspective of popes and kings, but also through the eyes of an Arab-Sicilian poet, a Byzantine princess, a Sunni scholar, a Shiite vizier, a Mongol commander, and ordinary Christian monks. Read more…