Crusading Warfare, 1097-1193

I finished reading this wonderful book last weekend. The amount of useful information that i gathered was enormous and very interesting and that makes this book a valuable resource for my research, since i write articles about the crusades in military magazines. Nevertheless i found it annoying that there were whole paragraphs in the text or in the footnotes area presented as they were in the primary text in latin language but ufortunatelly they were not translated in English, hence i was lacking the meaning of the primary text although i speak Italian. The footnotes on the other hand were plenty and useful by all means, but another disadvantage that i traced was that there were few maps within the book and those presented needed a better placement all in all. For example i would like from such a book to include more accurate maps instead of poor hand made pictures. I needed a map that could explain thoroughly the topography of the jerusalem kingdom as well as one that could explain the topography of the principalllity of Antioch and one for the county of Tripoli. Concluding, i would suggest this book gladly for all those readers interested in the demanding topic of the crusades, especially if they need informations about the 12th century events and campaigns. Haratsis Evangelos Hector

This is a scholarly study of warfare in the broader sense, including not just tactics but the social context, recruitment, castle-building (including an interesting discussion of the strategic role of castles), and so on. Where detail is lacking, it is because of the scarcity of records from the Latin kingdoms; for example, we know little of the composition or role of the crusaders' Turcopole auxiliaries. Smail does what he can with fragments of Old French or Latin (which, unfortunately, he quotes but does not translate) and provides ample footnotes for those who want to investigate further. There is little on weapons and siegecraft. An essential book for those seriously interested in the military aspects of the crusades, but those wanting a vivid narrative should look elsewhere.

Crusading Warfare is not a history of the Crusades, but it is a good analysis of the military operations and military structures of the crusading states and their Saracen opponents. If you already have a general knowledge of Crusading history, and are looking for a more detailed look at the military aspects of the crusading age, this book is for you, with one caveat: this book does tend to concentrate on the militaries of the feudal kingdoms that were established in Syria, and has little on the crusading armies that originated in Europe.