The First Crusade: The Call from the East

In 1096, an expedition of extraordinary scale and ambition set off from Western Europe on a mass pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Three years later, after a journey which saw acute hardship, the most severe dangers and thousands of casualties, the knights of the First Crusade found themselves storming the fortifications and capturing the Holy City from its Muslim overlords. Against all the odds, the First Crusade had returned Jerusalem to Christian hands. The First Crusade is one of the best-known and most written-about events in history. The story of knights taking up arms and crossing Europe to liberate Jerusalem enthralled writers at the time and has thrilled historians and readers ever since. The First Crusade- The Call from the East is the first book, however, to address the history of the expedition from the perspective of Constantinople. It argues that, contrary to received wisdom, the Byzantine Empire and its ruler the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos were facing annihilation on the eve of the Crusade, and that the situation in Asia Minor and in Constantinople had been unravelling rapidly and disastrously from the start of the 1090s. It was for this reason that pleas for militar

About the Author :
Peter Frankopan is Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford and Director the Centre for Byzantine Research at Oxford University. He took a First in History and was Schiff Scholar at Jesus College, Cambridge before completing his doctorate at Oxford, where he was Senior Scholar at Corpus Christi College. He has lectured at leading universities all over the world, including Cambridge, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, NYU, King's College London, and the Institute of Historical Research. His revised translation of The Alexiad by Anna Komnene was published in 2009.

Review :
Frankopan has written a remarkable book that makes as strong case as the incomplete and episodic evidence permits Peter Frankopan's reassessment of the Byzantine contribution to the origins and course of the First Crusade offers a compelling and challenging balance to traditional accounts. Based on fresh interpretations of primary sources, lucidly written and forcefully argued, The First Crusade will demand attention from scholars while providing an enjoyable and accessible narrative for the general reader In this fluent and dramatic account, Frankopan – quite rightly – places the Emperor Alexios at the heart of the First Crusade... Frankopan illuminates the complex challenges that faced Alexios and deftly depicts the boldness and finesse needed to survive in the dangerous world of medieval Byzantium A dazzling book, perfectly combining deep scholarship and easy readability. The most important addition to Crusading literature since Runciman Frankopan [writes with] tremendous literary verve… The cry to free Jerusalem has never been better expressed… Frankopan's creative revisionism pierces the armour of medieval history with a new weapon: the call of the East