From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up—This thorough set is particularly useful for those who have no background knowledge of the Crusades. Each volume includes lists of contributors, black-and-white maps, and abbreviations for the entire work. The 1000 signed essays, some of which include see-also references, are arranged alphabetically, with headings in bold. They include information on the major Crusades of the 11th to 14th centuries, and the people, places, concepts, and institutions involved. Entries are a half page to several pages in length. A brief bibliography follows each one, and a general bibliography categorizes resources at the end of each volume ("Atlases," "Reference Works," "The Crusades: General Histories"). Though 54 maps are insufficient for this work, its great attention to detail and wealth of information make it preferable to such titles as Alfred J. Andrea's concise
Encyclopedia of the Crusades (Greenwood, 2003).—
Michelle Barsom, Bainbridge College, GA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
*Starred Review* "The study of the crusades touches many different aspects of history, from war, politics, and economics to religious and cultural diversity." Recognizing both the complexity of the issues involved and the baggage the term carries today, the team of international scholars responsible for this new reference work successfully and dispassionately describes the individuals, places, events, and topics that cover the crusading movement.
The set contains about 1,000 alphabetically arranged entries, each signed by the author and concluding with a supplemental bibliography. While the entries are accessibly written for the general reader, they draw upon source material and secondary scholarship in a variety of languages. Consequently, references in the supplemental bibliographies are often to sources in languages other than English. The encyclopedia also includes a general bibliography on the Crusades and the geographical areas affected by them. Black-and-white illustrations are found throughout. A nice addition in the fourth volume is an appendix, entitled "Texts and Documents," that provides translations into English of a few letters, poems, and songs from the period.
As expected, coverage includes entries on such well-known figures as Urban II, the pope who called the First Crusade, and Richard I the Lionheart, king of England and a leader of the Third Crusade. But the encyclopedia demonstrates its geographic breadth by including an entry for the Artuqids, a Turkoman dynasty that skirmished with the Franks in Syria; a survey article on the Ottoman Empire in addition to individual entries for some of the sultans (e.g., Suleyman I); and various entries on the Abbasids, Fatimids, and Saljuqs, among others. Two articles on Naval history (Naval history, 1096-1099 and Naval history, 1100-1249) and one on Ships describe the types of vessels used at the time of the Crusades, what provisions were required to support a crew, and how precarious sea travel was at this time. Finally, an entry entitled Criticism of crusading presents not only contemporaneous European critiques of the manner in which the Crusades were prosecuted and the misbehavior of the crusaders themselves but also critiques of the movement itself.
Two recently published, single-volume sources on the Crusades are worth mentioning. The Encyclopedia of the Crusades (Greenwood, 2003) is, in many ways, a lite version of the reference work being reviewed. Its coverage extends to Muslim and Turkish figures and also includes illustrations, an index, and a chronology of the Crusades. The Historical Dictionary of the Crusades (Scarecrow, 2003) pretty much covers Europe only and lacks both illustrations and an index. Both are the product of single authors. Given its broad coverage and its accessible yet scholarly content, The Crusades: An Encyclopedia is the preferred work. Recommended for academic and large public libraries. Christopher McConnell
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