Crusades in the Modern World

Akil N. Awan is a Senior Lecturer in Modern History, Political Violence and Terrorism at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is Founder and Chair of the Political Science Association’s Specialist Group on Political Violence & Terrorism. His books include Radicalisation and Media: Terrorism and Connectivity in the New Media Ecology and Jihadism Transformed: al-Qaeda and Islamic State’s Global Battle of Ideas. Mike Horswell completed his PhD at Royal Holloway, university of London, and his book - The Rise and Fall of British Crusader Medievalism, c.1825-1945 - was published in 2018. He has taught at Royal Holloway, King's College London, and the University of Oxford and is currently researching, teaching and writing on the memory and legacy of the crusades in the modern era, from historiography to popular culture.

• Introduction: the crusades in the modern world; 1) Weaponising the crusades: justifying terrorism and political violence; 2) Los Caballeros Templarios de Michoacán: Knights Templar identity as a tool for legitimisation and internal discipline; 3) Medievalism, imagination, and violence: the function and dysfunction of crusading rhetoric in the post-9/11 political world; 4) The Reconquista revisited: mobilising medieval Iberian history in Spain, Portugal and beyond; 5) The reception of the crusades in the contemporary Catholic Church: ‘purification of memory’ or medieval nostalgia?; 6) Philatelic depictions of the crusades; 7) Wikipedia and the crusades: constructing and communicating crusading; 8) Engaging the crusades in context: reflections on the ethics of historical work