- Published: 2 February 2012
- ISBN: 9781446400937
- Imprint: Vintage Digital
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 288
The First Crusade
The Call from the East
- Published: 2 February 2012
- ISBN: 9781446400937
- Imprint: Vintage Digital
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 288
Frankopan has written a remarkable book that makes as strong case as the incomplete and episodic evidence permits
Jonathan Sumpton, Literary Review
Peter Frankopan's re-assessment 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: The Call from the East will demand attention from scholars while providing an enjoyable and accessible narrative for the general reader.
Christopher Tyerman, author of God’s War: A New History Of The Crusades
In this fluent and dramatic account, Frankopan - quite rightly - places the Emperor Alexios at the heart of the First Crusade and in doing so he skilfully provides a texture/dimension so often missing from our understanding of this seminal event in world history. 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
Jonathan Phillips, author of Holy Warriors
A dazzling book, perfectly combining deep scholarship and easy readability. The most important addition to Crusading literature since Runciman
John Julius Norwich
Scholarly and yet accessible, and unashamedly partisan, The First Crusade, as any vibrant history should, is bound to set a lot of feathers flying
Daily Telegraph
A nuanced and often counterintuitive story of power politics, international diplomacy and war and, ultimately that very rare thing - a truly fresh interpretation of an old story
Time Out
Frankopan's qualities as a historian and writer are of a high order
BBC History Magazine
It is not possible to do justice to a long and complex argument in a short review, and the author clearly shows that Byzantine politics played a significant part in the formulation of Western attitudes
Church Times
Frankopan's creative revisionism pierces the armour of medieval history with a new weapon: the call of the East
Oxford Times
The best book on the First Crusade ever written
Prof. Paul Chevedden
Convincing and accessible
Sunday Times
Superb…brilliantly described…I am proceeding to tell everyone I know that they have to buy the book, read it, and change the way they teach the First Crusade
Dr. Steve Biddlecombe, Bristol University
A scholarly but readable account of the first crusade, refreshingly repositioning it as a successful attempt by the Byzantine Emperor to save Constantinople
Katie Owen, Sunday Telegraph (Seven)