An Illustrated History of the Crusades and the Crusader Knights

by Charles Phillips

An unparalleled visual account of the world of the cradles, a movement that re-established trade between the East and the West, had a lasting impact on the social structure of medieval Europe, and bought Arabic learning to the wider world.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Medieval History, War, Reference, Medieval

256 pages, Hardcover

Published July 16, 2009

About the author

There is more than one author by this name on Goodreads

Charles Phillips (b. 1962) is an established writer of popular history, a contributor to Cassell's Dictionary of Modern Britain as well as to the Chronicle of Britain and several illustrated stories.

He has a keen interest in the mythology and history of the great Maya and Aztec civilizations and was a key writer on Time Life's Myth and Mankind series.
Phillips is a graduate of Oxford University, and holds an MA from the University of Westminster.

See also:
Charles Phillips, 1787-1859
Charles Phillips, Goodreads author, Historical Fiction
Charles Phillips, b.1948, American history

Reviews

[Zara's Corner · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It's an easy and very informative read. I was very pleased to see how much information there was on The Knights Templar. This pleased me because this group of people are my favourite group of the crusades. I suppose it helped that I had studied them recently in University. These crusades are a very fascinating part of, and playing a significant part in, history.

The pictures and other details are very well done and really helps to cement ones' knowledge of this part of history. This is a book I want to buy to have as a reference book about this period in history.

[Fadillah · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a while to finish this. The illustrations and pictures featured in the book is a good distraction, i suppose. I'm taking my time indulging every little details of every crusades. This book might need to be re-read as I couldn't remember all of the wars and battles occured in holy land. There are few that stood out while I'm reading this like the great speech at Clemont in 1095 by Pope Urban when he called for the first crusades, the highlight on weapon of tactics by Soldier of Islam, the massacre of muslim prisoners during the surrender of Acre and the tale of Peter 1 of Cyprus as the crusade king in the mid of 14th Century. This is just some of the events that i can remember while i write this review. Overall, this a good book to begin with if you wanted to understand the history of crusades.

[George Foord · Rating 5 out of 5]

a great introduction to the crusades, great illustrations, a perfect book for anyone wanting a brief history of the crusades

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was brief history of the Crusades and provided a good introduction to this period of history. The coffee table format of the book made it more difficult to read. The pages were glossy and heavy and the book seemed to be weighty enough. The rich illustrations surely made this worthy of the coffee table, but there was too much text for it to simply be a tome to fill spare time and decorate the living room.

In summary, this is a nice starting point from which to launch further reading on the topic of the Crusades and European or Middle Eastern history, but the physical properties of the book itself were not conducive to long reading sessions.

[Judith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, had some great pictures. It even helped me differentiate between some of the crusades where I had not ben able to before as far as who was king during which one, etc.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The perfect toilet book. Each section is just the right length for a reasonably timed sit down.