The First Crusade [electronic resource] : the call from the East / Peter Frankopan.
2012
D161.2 .F74 2012eb
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Title
The First Crusade [electronic resource] : the call from the East / Peter Frankopan.
Author
Frankopan, Peter.
ISBN
9780674064997 electronic book
0674059948
9780674059948
0674059948
9780674059948
Publication Details
Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012.
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (xxi, 262 p., [8] p.) : ill., maps.
Call Number
D161.2 .F74 2012eb
Dewey Decimal Classification
956/.014
Summary
According to tradition, the First Crusade began at the instigation of Pope Urban II and culminated in July 1099, when thousands of western European knights liberated Jerusalem from the rising menace of Islam. But what if the First Crusade's real catalyst lay far to the east of Rome? In this groundbreaking book, countering nearly a millennium of scholarship, Peter Frankopan reveals the untold history of the First Crusade.Nearly all historians of the First Crusade focus on the papacy and its willing warriors in the West, along with innumerable popular tales of bravery, tragedy, and resilience. In sharp contrast, Frankopan examines events from the East, in particular from Constantinople, seat of the Christian Byzantine Empire. The result is revelatory. The true instigator of the First Crusade, we see, was the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who in 1095, with his realm under siege from the Turks and on the point of collapse, begged the pope for military support. Basing his account on long-ignored eastern sources, Frankopan also gives a provocative and highly original explanation of the world-changing events that followed the First Crusade. The Vatican's victory cemented papal power, while Constantinople, the heart of the still-vital Byzantine Empire, never recovered. As a result, both Alexios and Byzantium were consigned to the margins of history. From Frankopan's revolutionary work, we gain a more faithful understanding of the way the taking of Jerusalem set the stage for western Europe's dominance up to the present day and shaped the modern world.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
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Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Description based on print version record.
Available in Other Form
First Crusade.
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Table of Contents
Europe in crisis
The recovery of Constantinople
Stability in the East
The collapse of Asia Minor
On the brink of disaster
The call from the East
The response of the West
To the imperial city
First encounters with the enemy
The struggle for the soul of the crusade
The crusade unravels
The consequences of the First Crusade.
The recovery of Constantinople
Stability in the East
The collapse of Asia Minor
On the brink of disaster
The call from the East
The response of the West
To the imperial city
First encounters with the enemy
The struggle for the soul of the crusade
The crusade unravels
The consequences of the First Crusade.