Fighting for Christendom: Holy War and the Crusades

Christopher Tyerman has composed a brief account of the history of the Crusades with an eye toward contemporary current events. For the reader who has little knowledge of the background of the Crusades, Mr. Tyerman gives a big picture overview of Christian Europe's many military operations (1095-1464 AD) to retake Jerusalem from the Muslim Arabs (who had conquered the Holy Land by 640 AD). The writing is a readable synthesis of the diverse research he has undertaken for this book. Mr. Tyerman ties together our Crusader past with its impact upon our present day world and debunks popular myths in his concluding chapter. For the reader who desires to read further upon the topic, I recommend Sir Steven Runciman's three volume (and 1,400 pages) magisterial epic upon the Crusades. Though published between 1951-1954, "A History of the Crusades" is a masterwork of popular writing. Jonathan Phillip's "The Fourth Crusade and the Sack Of Constantinople" is a more detail account of a crusade gone berserk.