HISTOIRE DES CROISADES

A fresh and synthetic look at the successive expeditions to the Middle East
known as the "Crusades (1096 - 1229)". The last book of an essential medieval historian.

Jacques Heers, who studied with Fernand Braudel and was Georges Duby's assistant, powerfully stimulated the historiographical debate throughout his career. Thanks to the author's profound knowledge of the Middle Ages, the many myths about these 'holy wars' are here confronted with the reality the historian had come to know through his research: we learn of the huge cost in time and money, many sovereigns were absent from their countries for years at a time; the lack of unity of purpose over the two centuries of expeditions; the widespread ignorance of Islam among the crusaders and much more. This is a work that is brilliant, masterful, and always original. Jacques Heers, the French historian whose specialty was the Middle Ages, died recently. He was a professor at the Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines at the Université de Paris X Nanterre, and then director of medieval studies at Paris IV. Among his notable works published by Perrin are Le Moyen-Âge, une imposture (1992); La Première Croisade (1995); Gilles de Rais (1994); Les Négriers en terre d'islam (2003) and La Naissance du capitalisme au Moyen-Âge (2012).