The First Crusade

The Call from the East

Peter Frankopan

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Paperback

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English

Arrow
16 May 2013

History; General & world history; Medieval history; Crusades; Religious intolerance, persecution & conflict

In 1096, an expedition of extraordinary scale and ambition set off from Western Europe on a mass pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Three years later, after a journey which saw acute hardship, the most severe dangers and thousands of casualties, the knights of the First Crusade found themselves storming the fortifications and capturing the Holy City from its Muslim overlords. Against all the odds, the expedition had returned Jerusalem to Christian hands. With its themes of the rise of the papacy, the confrontation between Christianity and Islam, the evolution of the concept of holy war, of knightly piety and religious devotion, the First Crusade is one of the best-known and most written-about events in history. Yet this fascinating and innovative study, Peter Frankopan shifts the paradigm and asks vital questions that have never been posed before. Why was there an overwhelming desire to liberate Jerusalem in the mid-1090s, given that the city had been taken by the Muslims nearly 500 years earlier? What were the causes of the Crusade in the east which provoked such an overwhelming response in the west? What role was played by the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople in the genesis and execution of the expedition? In short, why was there a First Crusade? Rather than concentrating on the pope and the knights of western Europe who have dominated the history of the First Crusade for centuries, Frankopan focuses on Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. He brilliantly restores the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos to the heart of the story, with a series of catastrophic events in the mid-1090s serving to paint a compelling and strikingly original picture of the expedition to Jerusalem that will change our understanding of the Crusades as a whole.

By: Peter Frankopan
Imprint: Arrow
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 214g
ISBN: 9780099555032
ISBN 10: 0099555034
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 16 May 2013
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Peter Frankopan is Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford and Director the Centre for Byzantine Research at Oxford University. He took a First in History and was Schiff Scholar at Jesus College, Cambridge before completing his doctorate at Oxford, where he was Senior Scholar at Corpus Christi College. He has lectured at leading universities all over the world, including Cambridge, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, NYU, King's College London, and the Institute of Historical Research. His revised translation of The Alexiad by Anna Komnene was published in 2009.

Reviews for The First Crusade: The Call from the East

Frankopan's qualities as a historian and writer are of a high order * BBC History Magazine * A nuanced and often counterintuitive story of power politics, international diplomacy and war and, ultimately that very rare thing - a truly fresh interpretation of an old story * Time Out * Convincing and accessible * Sunday Times * Scholarly and yet accessible, and unashamedly partisan, The First Crusade, as any vibrant history should, is bound to set a lot of feathers flying * Daily Telegraph * Frankopan has written a remarkable book that makes as strong case as the incomplete and episodic evidence permits * Literary Review *