Think more deeply and work more independently at A level History through a carefully thought-out enquiry approach from SHP. Enquiring History: It makes you think! The OFSTED report on school history suggests that the current generation of A Level students have been poorly served by exam-based textbooks which spoon-feed students while failing to enthuse them or develop deeper understandings of studying History The Schools History Project has risen to this challenge with a new series for the next generation. Enquiring History is SHP's fresh approach to Advanced Level History that aims: - To motivate and engage readers - To help readers think and gain independence as learners - To encourage enquiry, and deeper understanding of periods and the people of the past - To engage with current scholarship - To prepare A Level students for university Key features of each Student book - Clear compelling narrative - books are designed to be read cover to cover - Structured enquiries - that explore the core content and issues of each period - 'Insight' panels between enquiries provide context, overview, and extension - Full colour illustrations throughout The Crusades: Conflict and controversy 1095-1291 There has never been a more important time to study the Crusades. Religious conflict is a fact of life in the twenty-first century no less than it was in the medieval world. And yet the world of the Crusades is so different from ours that it takes a massive leap of imagination to make sense of these events. This book takes on that challenge: opening a window onto the 12th and 13th century worlds to understand what on earth was going on. It examines the Crusades themselves; the controversies surrounding them; and the past and current re-interpretations of the period. Web-based support includes - lesson planning tools and guidance for teachers available from the SHP website http://www.schoolshistoryproject.org.uk/Publishing/BooksSHP/BooksALvlEHS.html - eBooks for whole class teaching or individual student reading available from eBook retailers

Claiming that many in the West lack a thorough understanding of crusading, Jonathan Riley-Smith explains why and where the Crusades were fought, identifies their architects, and shows how deeply their language and imagery were embedded in popular Catholic thought and devotional life.

Why did the last of the major European campaigns to reclaim Jerusalem end in an attack on Tunis, a peaceful North African port city thousands of miles from the Holy Land? In the first book-length study of the campaign in English, Michael Lower tells the story of how the classic era of crusading came to such an unexpected end. Unfolding against a backdrop of conflict and collaboration that extended from England to Inner Asia, the Tunis Crusade entangled people from every corner of the Mediterranean world. Within this expansive geographical playing field, the ambitions of four powerful Mediterranean dynasts would collide. While the slave-boy-turned-sultan Baybars of Egypt and the saint-king Louis IX of France waged a bitter battle for Syria, al-Mustansir of Tunis and Louis's younger brother Charles of Anjou struggled for control of the Sicilian Straits. When the conflicts over Syria and Sicily became intertwined in the late 1260s, the Tunis Crusade was the shocking result. While the history of the crusades is often told only from the crusaders' perspective, in The Tunis Crusade of 1270, Lower brings Arabic and European-language sources together to offer a panoramic view of these complex multilateral conflicts. Standing at the intersection of two established bodies of scholarship--European History and Near Eastern Studies--this volume contributes to both by opening up a new conversation about the place of crusading in medieval Mediterranean culture.

The city of Acre, powerfully fortified and richly provisioned, was the last crusader stronghold. When it fell in 1291, two hundred years of Christian crusading in the Holy Land came to a bloody end. With his customary narrative brilliance and immediacy, Roger Crowley chronicles the tumultuous and violent attack on Acre, the heaviest bombardment before the age of gunpowder, which left this once great Mediterranean city a crumbling ruin.The ‘Accursed Tower’ was the focal point of this siege. As the last garrison of the Crusader defences, it came to symbolise the disintegration of the old world and the rise of a new era of Islamic jihad. Crowley’s narrative is based on forensic research, drawing heavily on little known first hand sources, both Christian and Arabic. This is a fast-paced and gripping account of a pivotal moment in world history.

A concise history of the crusades - whose chief goal was the liberation and preservation of the 'holy places' of the middle east - from the first calls to arms in the later twelfth century to the fall of the last crusader strongholds in Syria and Palestine in 1291. This is the ideal introductory textbook for all students of the crusades. Professor Richard considers the consequences of the crusades, such as the establishment of the Latin east, and its organisation into a group of feudal states, as well as crusading contacts with the Muslim world, eastern Christians, Byzantines, and Mongols. Also considered are the organisation of expeditions, the financing of such expeditionary forces, and the organisation of operations and supply. Jean Richard is one of the world's great crusader historians and this work, the distillation of over forty years' research and contemplation, is the only one of its kind in English.

The Crusades is an authoritative, accessible single-volume history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land in the Middle Ages. Thomas Asbridge—a renowned historian who writes with “maximum vividness” (Joan Acocella, The New Yorker)—covers the years 1095 to 1291 in this big, ambitious, readable account of one of the most fascinating periods in history. From Richard the Lionheart to the mighty Saladin, from the emperors of Byzantium to the Knights Templar, Asbridge’s book is a magnificent epic of Holy War between the Christian and Islamic worlds, full of adventure, intrigue, and sweeping grandeur.