Crusaders: An Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands
By Dan Jones

From the bestselling author ofand The Templars.'Voyages, battles, sieges and slaughter: Dan Jones's tumultuous and thrilling history of the crusades is one of the best'and SUNDAY TIMES.'A powerful story brilliantly told. Dan Jones writes with pace, wit and insight'and HELEN CASTOR.'A fresh and vibrant account of a conflict that raged across medieval centuries'and JONATHAN PHILLIPS.Dan Jones, best-selling chronicler of the Middle Ages, turns his attention to the history of the Crusades - the sequence of religious wars fought between the late eleventh century and late medieval periods, in which armies from European Christian states attempted to wrest the Holy Land from Islamic rule, and which have left an enduring imprint on relations between the Muslim world and the West.From the preaching of the First Crusade by Pope Urban II in 1095 to the loss of the last crusader outpost in the Levant in 1302-03, and from the taking of Jerusalem from the Fatimids in 1099 to the fall of Acre to the Mamluks in 1291, Crusaders tells a tale soaked in Islamic, Christian and Jewish blood, peopled by extraordinary characters, and characterised by both low ambition and high principle.Dan Jones is a master of popular narrative history, with the priceless ability to write page-turning narrative history underpinned by authoritative scholarship. Never before has the era of the Crusades been depicted in such bright and striking colours, or their story told with such gusto.PRAISE FORand THE TEMPLARS:'A fresh, muscular andand compelling historyand of the ultimate military-religious crusading order, combining sensible scholarship with narrative swagger' SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE.'Dan Jones has created aand gripping page-turnerand out of the dramatic history of the Templars' PHILIPPA GREGORY.'The story of the Templars, the ultimate holy warriors, isand an extraordinary sagaand of fanaticism, bravery, treachery and betrayal, and in Dan Jones they have a worthy chronicler.and The Templarsand is a wonderful book!' BERNARD CORNWELL.'Told with all Jones's usual verve and panache, this is aand dramatic and gripping taleand of courage and stupidity, faith and betrayal'and MAIL ON SUNDAY.'This is anotherand triumphant taleand from a historian who writes as addictively as any page-turning novelist'and OBSERVER.'The Templarsand is exhilarating,and epic, sword-swinging history'and TLS.'Jones carries the Templars through the crusades withand clarity and verve. This is unabashed narrative history, fast-paced and full of incident... Jones tells their story extremely well'and SUNDAY TIMES.