Engaging the Crusades is a series of concise volumes (up to 50,000 words) which offer initial windows into the ways in which the crusades have been used in the last two centuries, demonstrating that the memory of the crusades is an important and emerging subject. Together these studies suggest that the memory of the crusades, in the modern period, is a productive, exciting, and much needed area of investigation. Despite their ‘intrinsic internationalism’, the crusades have long been conscripted for nationalist ends. The last decade has seen an upsurge in usage of the crusades to justify and inspire violence played out within and across national contexts. This volume furthers study of nationalist uses of the crusades and crusading by broadening the focus of study beyond north-western Europe and by showcasing different approaches to illustrate how the memory of the crusades has been employed within and between nations. This takes the form of tightly focused case studies and broader overviews covering the ambivalent role of foreign crusaders in Portuguese commemorations of the battle of Lisbon in 1947, Russian holy war rhetoric and theology, Zionist perceptions of the crusader castle of ‘Athlit, the role of individuals as ‘cultural brokers’ of crusader heritage amidst European imperial competition, and how crusading as a part of European medievalism was received and reflected in Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This book will be of interest to scholars and students considering national identity, medievalism, and religious violence and to those with specific interest in the contexts of each chapter.

Engaging the Crusades is a series of concise volumes (up to 50,000 words) which offer initial windows into the ways in which the crusades have been used in the last two centuries, demonstrating that the memory of the crusades is an important and emerging subject. Together these studies suggest that the memory of the crusades, in the modern period, is a productive, exciting, and much-needed area of investigation. This volume explores how crusading rhetoric, iconography, and historiography have been purposed by far-right, nationalist, and related groups in the recent past through case studies as varied as Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 people at a mosque and Islamic centre in New Zealand in March 2019; a modern American ‘military order’ that uses memes to recruit members and spread its ideology; and the bestselling video game Assassin’s Creed. As nationalist and far-right ideologies have gained adherents in Europe and the Americas, understanding how ideologues have misused the crusading past for their own ends is more important than ever. The Crusades and the Far-Right in the Twenty-First Century is useful for all students and scholars interested in the intersection between the history of the crusades and far-right ideology in the modern age.

For the last 150 years the historiography of the Crusades has been dominated by nationalist and colonialist discourses in Europe and the Levant. These modern histories have interpreted the Crusades in terms of dichotomous camps, Frankish and Muslim. In this revisionist study, Ronnie Ellenblum presents an interpretation of Crusader historiography that instead defines military and architectural relations between the Franks, local Christians, Muslims and Turks in terms of continuous dialogue and mutual influence. Through close analysis of siege tactics, defensive strategies and the structure and distribution of Crusader castles, Ellenblum relates patterns of crusader settlement to their environment and demonstrates the influence of opposing cultures on tactics and fortifications. He argues that fortifications were often built according to economic and geographic considerations rather than for strategic reasons or to protect illusory 'frontiers', and that Crusader castles are the most evident expression of a cultural dialogue between east and west.

Crusades covers the seven hundred years from the First Crusade (1095-1102) to the fall of Malta (1798) and draws together scholars working on theatres of war, their home fronts and settlements from the Baltic to Africa and from Spain to the Near East and on theology, law, literature, art, numismatics and economic, social, political and military history. Routledge publishes this journal for The Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East. Particular attention is given to the publication of historical sources - narrative, homiletic and documentary - but studies and interpretative essays are welcomed too. Crusades also incorporates the Society's Bulletin. The editors are Professor Jonathan Phillips, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK; Iris Shagrir, The Open University of Israel; Professor Benjamin Z. Kedar, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel; and Nikolaos G. Chrissis, Democritus University of Thrace, Greece.

This is the first book-length study of the legacy and memory of the main military orders in Britain, the Templars and Knights of St. John. It provides a survey from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries using hitherto neglected sources and identifies areas for further research and analysis. The volume first examines the historiography of the Orders, delving past the standard histories to examine their authors, readership, accessibility, advertisements. and reviews. It then discusses the material memory of the Orders, from the Temple Church in London and St. John’s Gate at Clerkenwell to archaeological discoveries and romanticised stained-glass depictions. Turning next to the revival and reinvention of the Order of St John after the loss of Malta in 1798 and the foundation of the British Order based at Clerkenwell, it unravels fact from fiction in the claims of continuity with the medieval knights made by the Masonic Knights Templars. For many, memory was shaped by popular fiction as well as history, so the final part considers various literary interpretations of the Orders’ history. This book will interest scholars and students of the Military Orders and Crusades, as well as general readers of the history of memory and reception.

This book investigates the uses of crusader medievalism – the memory of the crusades and crusading rhetoric and imagery – in Britain, from Walter Scott’s The Talisman (1825) to the end of the Second World War. It seeks to understand why and when the crusades and crusading were popular, how they fitted with other cultural trends of the Victorian and Edwardian eras, how their use was affected by the turmoil of the First World War and whether they were differently employed in the interwar years and in the 1939-45 conflict. Building on existing studies and contributing the fruits of fresh research, it brings together examples of the uses of the crusades from disparate contexts and integrates them into the story of the rise and fall crusader medievalism in Britain.

A lively reimagining of how the distant medieval world of war functioned, drawing on the objects used and made by crusaders Throughout the Middle Ages crusading was justified by religious ideology, but the resulting military campaigns were fueled by concrete objectives: land, resources, power, reputation. Crusaders amassed possessions of all sorts, from castles to reliquaries. Campaigns required material funds and equipment, while conquests produced bureaucracies, taxation, economic exploitation, and commercial regulation. Wealth sustained the Crusades while material objects, from weaponry and military technology to carpentry and shipping, conditioned them. This lavishly illustrated volume considers the material trappings of crusading wars and the objects that memorialized them, in architecture, sculpture, jewelry, painting, and manuscripts. Christopher Tyerman’s incorporation of the physical and visual remains of crusading enriches our understanding of how the crusaders themselves articulated their mission, how they viewed their place in the world, and how they related to the cultures they derived from and preyed upon.

Nationalism, Religious Violence, and Hate Speech in Nineteenth-Century Western Europe critically analyses the role played by different memories of past religious violence in public debates in nineteenth-century Europe. Looking back, European societies often did not seek to overcome their differences and create a framework of peaceful coexistence among various religions and denominations, but rather, more frequently, to fuel intra- and inter-religious hatred. Moreover, various violent pasts were mobilised to define what and who was intolerant, in order to mark the "other" as intolerant and therefore incompatible with societal values. To examine conflicting memories of violence and hatred, this book focuses on commemorations, statues, publications, and public polemics surrounding past religious violence. Three elements serve as a framework to explain the conflictive nature of these memories of intolerance: the age of commemorations, the culture wars, and the second confessional age. The authors explore cases in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the Low Countries, covering Catholicism, Protestantism, Anglicanism, Islam, and Judaism. The book focuses on iconic victims such as Giordano Bruno and Michael Servetus, collective massacres, and discourses surrounding religious hatred in events such as the Crusades. The cases of religious violence remembered in the nineteenth century span the Middle Ages and the intense period of religious violence known as the confessional age. This book will appeal to students and scholars of politics, religious tolerance and freedom, hate speech, nationalism, religious history, and European history.

A discussion of the frequently controversial film maker Youssef Chahine. The book aims to illuminate Chahine's work in the context of modern Egyptian culture and its tumultuous post-war history and how such films as 'Cairo Station' (1958), 'The Earth' (1959) and 'The Sparrow' (1973) dramatized the dilemmas of ordinary Egyptians. He also argues that Chahine's intensely autobiographical trilogy 'Alexandria...Why?' (1978), 'An Egyptian Story' (1985) and 'Alexandria...More and More' (1989) spoke to the concerns of the broader Egyptian intelligentsia amongst whom he has earned the reputation of being the 'poet and thinker' of modern Arab cinema. The final analysis of the book argues that Chahine's work stands comparison with directors such as Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa or Sembene but also emphatically draws strength from its links with one of the most vibrant popular cinemas of the world and from the roots and traditions of popular Arabic culture.