PublishedPenguin, November 2016 |
ISBN9780241954652 |
FormatSoftcover, 448 pages |
Dimensions19.8cm × 12.9cm × 2.6cm |
In this highly original and enjoyable book, Christopher Tyerman focuses on the massive, all-encompassing and hugely costly business of actually preparing a crusade. The efforts of many thousands of men and women, who left their lands and families in Western Europe, and marched off to a highly uncertain future in the Holy Land and elsewhere have never been sufficiently understood.
How to Plan a Crusade is fascinating on diplomacy, communications, propaganda, the use of mass media, medical care, equipment, voyages, money, weapons, credit, wills, ransoms, animals, and the power of prayer. It brings to life an extraordinary era in a novel and surprising way
'Wonderfully written and characteristically brilliant' Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads
'Elegant, readable ...an impressive synthesis ...Not many historians could have done it' - Jonathan Sumption, Spectator.
'Tyerman's book is fascinating not just for what it has to tell us about the Crusades, but for the mirror it holds up to today's religious extremism' - Tom Holland, Spectator.