The Crusades: 1 (Essential Histories) Paperback – Illustrated, 19 Jan. 2001

Excellent introduction and overview of The Crusades. A sad picture of religious militancy and extremism on both sides. However, on balance the Christains were probably the worse. Western Christians even sacked Eastern Christain cities.Well written by an expert on the subject and with good maps and illustrations. My only slight gripe was that the maps were often pages away from the text (occasionally many pages). This was needless.Although a history book, this book is topical because of the current extremism and fighting in the Middle East. Christainty did eventually progress beyond its period of religious extremism and massacres (which were really bad). However, will Islam do the same?

I’m usually quite keen on the Essential Histories series of books as I know I can rely on them to give me a basic understanding of key historical events and this is the sixth or seventh title I’ve purchased so far. As with the other books in the series ‘The Crusades’ provides a concise and easy to read introduction to this complicated and contentious subject. In true Osprey style the focus is firmly on the military campaigning and there are plenty of maps and other illustrations which show the ebb and flow of the warring sides. In addition to information on key figures in the Crusades, such as Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, there are also ‘portraits’ of various soldiers, civilians and clerics which explore the conflict from their perspective. So why three stars instead of four? Simply because I found the author’s lack of impartiality irritating. The text is littered with unsubstantiated, throw-away comments which betray Dr David Nicolle's pro-Islamic, anti-Crusader bias. Rather than taking sides, Essential Histories should just stick to the acknowledged facts [what happened, where it happened and when it happened] and leave it at that.