Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 909.07
EAN: 9780192806550
ISBN: 0192806556
Label: OUP Oxford
Manufacturer: OUP Oxford
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 184
Publication Date: October 13, 2005
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Studio: OUP Oxford

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Rating: - God help us all
I'm a great fan of the "very short introduction" series, published in a nice pocketable format and covering a huge range of topics. But editor and author must take heavy blame for this impenetrable monstrosity.

As pointed out by a previous reviewer, this book was written originally for a knowledgeable audience and has been simply rebranded as an "introduction". It isn't. Not a bit of it. Tyerman races through the events of the crusades and then attempts a long and excessively detailed ... Read More

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Rating: - An interminable Introduction
I purchased this title expecting, as it says on the cover, a short introduction to the crusades; an overview of the wars with possibly some academic insight into their principal causes, after effects and enduring legacy.

Instead Tyerman, spends one chapter giving an "A Ridiculously short introduction" to the crusades. The rest of the book is both disjointed and lacks flow. Although the introduction is Academic, it is badly written with long laborious sentences often describing the most ... Read More

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Rating: - Holy men at war
Part of the continuing fascination with the Crusades is due to the belief that we are still fighting them, that they precipitated a Christian/Islamic conflict in which we are still caught up. Truth tends to be much more complex and multi-layered than myth, which is indeed why we prefer the latter. But if you would like to get at the former, Tyerman's book is a good place to start. The most important lessons are to do with scope and context. The Crusades were much more than a series of military expeditions ... Read More

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Rating: - Good if overly-academic
Tyerman's The Crusades: A Very Short Introduction was not, in fact written to be a very short introduction, and was first prublished as "Fighting for Christendom" in 2004. This is where the problem seems to lie. Repackaged as a VSI, it attracts new and general readers who expect it to be what it says on the cover. They then have to battle with this overly-academic text. I am sure this book is perfectly brillant in itself, but it doesn't really work as a very short introduction. The writer asumes, fairly enough ... Read More

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Rating: - Fascinating and surprisingly comprehensive
I am a big fan of the idea behind the Very Short Introduction series, and the way in which they provide information in an easily accesible manner with plenty of scope for further reading. "The Crusades" by Christopher Tyerman is one of its best examples. It is dense material, admittedly, but very readable at the same time.

This is not only a narrative of the events of each crusade but also an exploration of the very idea of the crusade, how it developed, its historical context, the mechanics of how ... Read More

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