The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades by Paul M. Cobb

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. 335 pp, 9 1/2" H. B&w maps, colour plates. "In 1099, when the first crusaders arrived triumphant and bloody before the walls of Jerusalem, they carved out a Christian European presence in the Islamic world that remained for centuries, bolstered by subsequent waves of new crusades and pilgrimages. But how did medieval Muslims understand these events? What does an Islamic history of the Crusades look like? The answers may surprise you. In (this book), we see medieval Muslims managing this new and long-lived Crusader threat not simply as victims or as victors, but as everything in-between, on all shores of the Muslim Mediterranean, from Spain to Syria. This is not just a straightforward tale of warriors and kings clashing in the Holy Land, of military confrontations and enigmatic heroes such as the great sultan Saladin. What emerges is a more complicated story of bordercrossers and turncoats, of embassies and merchants, of scholars and spies, all of… Read More

OUP Oxford, 2014-07-24. hardcover. Good. 6x1x9. First edition. Book is in good condition. Ex-library copy with typical stamps and markings. Unclipped dust jacket. Plastic jacket.

hardcover. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book.

OUP Oxford, 2014. Hardcover. New. 358 pages. 9.29x6.30x1.10 inches.