Customer Reviews
An interminable Introduction - By: P. M. Buttigieg, 07 Jul 2008 
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 & enduring legacy.
Instead Tyerman, spends one chapter giving an "A Ridiculously short introduction" to the crusades. The rest of the book is both disjointed & lacks flow. Although the introduction is Academic, it is badly written with long laborious sentences often describing the most trivial of events. Considering that the target audience are far from being experts on the subject but rather casual readers seeking either (1) Knowledge of a subject which they know little (2) An introduction into a subject on which they want to learn more (3) A refresher on a subject which they have studied in the past, this book is the complete opposite of the entertaining, factual account of the crusades, sought by these readers.
I am possible being slightly harsh in my rating. However the fact that I took a whole month to struggle through a "very short introduction", to me, defeats the purpose of this book. Not only this, but I also felt like putting it in the toaster every time I read 5 pages of it!!
Good if overly-academic - By: Andrew, 31 May 2007 
Tyerman's The Crusades: A Very Short Introduction was not, in fact written to be a very short introduction, & was first prublished as "Fighting for Christendom" in 2004. This is where the problem seems to lie. Repackaged as a VSI, it attracts new & 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 reallly work as a very short introduction. The writer asumes, fairly enough as it seems he didn't know it would become a VSI, a good knowledge of medevial history, academic terms & world geography. This clearly alienates some, like me, who thought it would be a much simpler read as the title suggests: easing you in, rather than jumping in head first.
However, the books is still actuallly reallly quite good. Speaking as someone who knows next to nothing about medevial history & is not familar with every academic term under the sun, the book was still very informative & interesting. There is no doubt if you are like me you will sometimes have to battle with paragraphs to grasp meaning, but somehow things did falll into place. Tyerman is clearly an expert who makes some very intriguing points in historography, seeking to dispell misconceptions, as a result of what must be extensive research & a genuine interest for the topic. Let's put it this way: criticism aside, I can't deny I enjoyed reading it.
Difficult, not exactly a very short introduction, but most definitely good.
Fascinating and surprisingly comprehensive - By: J. Aitcheson, 11 Mar 2007 
I am a big fan of the idea behind the Very Short Introduction series, & 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 it was decreed & promoted, who went on crusade, how these expeditions were financed. Tyerman briefly touches as well on what life was like in the Holy Land, & the relationship of the Christian colonists to the Muslims. He also examines how similar crusading ideas were applied not just to the Holy Land but also to the pagan lands of the Baltic & the Spanish Reconquista.
For a book that is less 150 pages long, Tyerman thus does a fantastic job of covering the crusades in detail from many different angles. It is certainly less daunting, as well more digestible, than some of the massive tomes (sometimes over 1000 pages) which exist about the crusades. To place the wealth of information in context, the book includes a good number of maps & illustrations, while a list of further reading at the back means that it is possible to follow up on many of the interesting points that Tyerman raises.
In short, this is a brilliantly engaging & surprisingly comprehensive introduction, ideal for both students of medieval history & the casual reader.
heavy going! - By: king los, 21 Feb 2007 
this is not what i expected from an 'introduction' to the crusades, & i'm not exactly sure who its written for.
firstly, there is the content. i would expect an 'introduction' to provide an interesting overview to the crusades, marked with a few fascinating insights & investigations into the events & personalities involved. & maybe a few entertaining anecdotes to bring it alll to life? instead, it is a lightning fast, skimping overview of the actual crusades (approximately 10 pages) followed by a long, labourious dissection of the historiography of the holy wars which occupies the remaining 90% of the book. secondly, there is the writing; long sentances, punctuated by innumerable clauses, complex concepts, massive, often latin, words & advanced academic theory. this rapidly gets tiresome for the 'casual' reader.
And this is the very essence of the problem - its just alll so heavy & academic. i did a degree in medieval history, studying the crusades in great depth, & just wanted an entertaining refresher 10 years on.
This was not entertaining, nor in any way a 'refresher'.
it is not without its merits though. it does reallly get into the essence of the crusades, the reasons, the age, the philosophical/religious background & the crusaders' motivations. (although goes way too far into details for an 'intro'.) & the way it eventuallly compares & contrasts crusading reality & myth to the current state of international politics (ie iraq etc) is geuninely fascinating.
if you are a medieval student preparing to study the crusades, then this is not a bad place to start. (although not the best.) but if you casuallly looking into the crusades as a matter of interest - look elsewhere. this is way, way to heavy going & far too obsessed with historiography & historical post-crusade argument to offer an entertaining, largely factual account of the crusades.
