The Life and Legend of the Sultan Saladin

An authoritative and brilliantly told account of the life of one of the world’s greatest – and most famous – military leaders. Jonathan Phillips leaves no stone unturned in this impressive and lively history of the genius who was Saladin

PETER FRANKOPAN, author of The Silk Roads

This illuminating and fascinating biography of Saladin could not be timely. Today political figures often inspire little admiration, but Saladin’s career at the height of the Crusades reminds us that moral charisma and integrity can be recognised and honoured by people on both sides of a vicious conflict. His concluding account of the intense emotion that the memory of Saladin still inspires in the Middle East today reveals the sensitivity and pain that underlies so many of the region’s unresolved problems

KAREN ARMSTRONG, author of Fields of Blood

Outstanding. Jonathan Phillips has written a compelling account of arguably the most inspirational of Islamic military heroes

CHRISTOPHER DE BELLAIGUE, author of The Islamic Enlightenment

Vivid and authoritative, with glistening details on every page. Phillips explains Saladin’s ability to mesmerise not just through the achievements of his lifetime but through his inspiration of Arab leaders, including Nasser, Assad and Saddam Hussein, ever since

JAMES BARR, author of A Line in the Sand

Beautifully researched and authoritative, Jonathan Phillips's very fine biography of this fascinating historical character underlines how serious history made accessible to the general reader is invaluable if we hope to understand our world today

JASON BURKE, author of The 9/11 Wars

Jonathan Phillips explores new themes and makes use of various underused or wholly neglected Arabic sources ... vivid and convincing

Robert Irwin, Literary Review

Superbly researched and enormously entertaining ... one of the outstanding books of the year

Gerard DeGroot, The Times

Superb, highly readable and definitive ... One of the world’s leading crusades scholars ... Phillips's narrative of Saladin's career is vivid and judicious, punctuated by set pieces that charge along like battle scenes from Game of Thrones

Dan Jones, Sunday Times

More than just a biography ... this book paints a rich, absorbing picture of the 12th-century Middle East ... gives expert accounts of the many hard-fought battles and sieges ... vividly describes the Crusader fightback ... One major lesson of this book is that the facts about the distant past are much, much more interesting than the opportunistic uses made of them by anyone in the present

Telegraph

Fascinating, authoritative and intelligent

Spectator

Phillips produces an absorbing, readable narrative… an excellent introduction to the life of Saladin by a scholar who is respected around the world for his work on the sultan and the crusades… an invaluable guide

Helen Nicholson, BBC History

Phillips’s careful scrutiny of the surprisingly numerous contemporary sources underlies an impressive piece of historical reconstruction

Michael Prodger, New Statesman, *Books of the Year*