The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy LandFrom a renowned historian who writes with "maximum vividness" (The New Yorker) comes the most authoritative, readable single volume history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land. Nine hundred years ago, a vast Christian army, summoned to holy war by the Pope, rampaged through the Muslim world of the eastern Mediterranean, seizing possession of Jerusalem, a city revered by both faiths. Over the two hundred years that followed, Islam and