The First Crusade
by Steven Runciman | 
Holy Warriors
by Jonathan Phillips |
The First Crusade
by Thomas Asbridge |
The Crusades
by Christopher Tyerman | 
The Crusades through Arab Eyes
by Amin Maalouf | 
The Crusades
by Thomas Asbridge | 
The Templars
by Dan Jones |
The Fall of Constantinople 1453
by Steven Runciman | 
Byzantium
by Judith Herrin |
Millennium
by Tom Holland | 
Dead Wake
by Erik Larson | 
One Summer: America, 1927
by Bill Bryson | 
Six Frigates
by Ian W. Toll |
102 Minutes
by Jim Dwyer | 
The History of Jihad
by Robert Spencer | 
Five Days at Memorial
by Sheri Fink |
The Oregon Trail
by Rinker Buck | 
The History of Surfing
by Matt Warshaw | 
Washington's Immortals
by Patrick K. O'Donnell | 
American Gun
by Chris Kyle |
In 1202, zealous Western Christians gathered in Venice determined to liberate Jerusalem from the grip of Islam. But the crusaders never made it to the Holy Land. Steered forward by the shrewd Venetian doge, they descended instead on Constantinople, wreaking terrible devastation. The crusaders spared no one: They raped and massacred thousands, plundered churches, and torched the lavish city. By 1204, one of the great civilizations of history had been shattered. Here, on the eight hundredth anniversary of the sack, is the extraordinary story of this epic catastrophe, told for the first time outside of academia by Jonathan Phillips, a leading expert on the crusades. Knights and commoners, monastic chroniclers, courtly troubadours, survivors of the carnage, and even Pope Innocent III left vivid accounts detailing the events of those two fateful years. Using their remarkable letters, chronicles, and speeches, Phillips traces the way in which any region steeped in religious fanaticism, in this case Christian Europe, might succumb to holy war.