What Were the Crusades?

JONATHAN RILEY-SMITH is Dixie Professor Emeritus of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Cambridge, UK, and a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, UK.

'None of the growing number of rather good general books on the Crusades performs the same service in anything like the same measure as Riley-Smith's; no bibliography for an undergraduate course can afford to dispense with this book.' - Professor Peter Jackson, Keele University, UK 'An indispensable short introduction to a vast subject.' - Professor Thomas Madden, St Louis University, USA 'A fourth edition, 32 years after the first, is a tribute to the merits of this concise and perceptive book. A.W. Purdue, Times Higher Education 'If Bush had read this book - a new fourth edition of a seminal work first published in 1977 - he might have spoken more carefully on the White House lawn.' - Tribune

• PrefacePreface to Second EditionPreface to Third EditionPreface to Fourth EditionMap: The Theatres of WarWhat Were the Crusades?A Just CauseLegitimate AuthorityWho Were the Crusaders?When were the Crusades?Chronology, 1095-1798Select Bibliography of Secondary WorksIndex.