Crusaders

I picked this up after I DNFed The Shield of Three Lions by Pamela Kaufman because I was still in the mood to read about the Crusades, but didn???t want any of the shenaniganry from Kaufman???s book. Or, okay, not THAT much shenaniganry, because there were definitely shenanigans happening in the actual historical crusades. 

I???ve read some of Jones??? books before, and thought they were interesting, if rather dry. This book certainly fits in with that assessment: it???s interesting, but still rather dry. This is why I had to switch midway through to the audiobook, because it was easier to digest that way than reading it off the page. 
Despite that hiccup though, this is, as I said, an interesting book. It chooses to tell the story of the crusades from the perspectives of key individuals who participated in them, which results in its very broad scope: an overview of the crusades, and what drove them. The latter is the most interesting part to me, because the book makes it very clear that, while religion WAS an aspect that drove the crusades, it was just ONE driving factor among many. Oftentimes, the real motivations driving crusades were political, social, and personal; faith came into play because the people behind the crusades were themselves religious people. Sometimes, those people took to crusading out of a genuine belief in their religion; other (lots of) times, they used their religion as an excuse to colonize some land and kill lots of people they disagreed with. 
One of the more interesting ideas this book tackles is how the idea of crusading itself changed over the centuries. At first it really did mean ???going to Jerusalem to free it from the Muslims for absolution of one???s sins???, but over time, the concept was increasingly changed and manipulated by secular and religious leaders alike. By the end, ???crusading??? was only vaguely connected to the idea of retaking Jerusalem from the Muslims, and actually meant ???fighting anywhere against any enemy of the Church for absolution of one???s sins, and maybe other, more tangible rewards???. 
Which now begs the question of ???How is crusading perceived today???? The author does try to tackle that, but only briefly, in the book???s epilogue. I thought this was a bit sad, not least because it focused primarily on religious extremism and seemed to gloss over the use of crusading as a cover and tool for colonization, but given that this book is really just an overview, the lack of depth makes sense. 
Overall, I think this book makes a great starting point for anyone who???s interested in the history of the crusades, since it offers some interesting jumping-off points that can lead the reader down paths they might find potentially interesting. The book has an extensive bibliography of both primary and secondary sources both academic and popular, so the reader can really just take a look at that and build a reading list based on whatever idea they latched onto. I also think it???s an important book to read now, given the Palestinian genocide and how Israel???s actions are painted by certain right-wingers as a ???new crusade???.