The First Crusade

Frankopan has written a remarkable book that makes as strong case as the incomplete and episodic evidence permits * Literary Review *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 dazzling book, perfectly combining deep scholarship and easy readability. The most important addition to Crusading literature since RuncimanA 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 *Convincing and accessible * Sunday Times *A scholarly but readable account of the first crusade, refreshingly repositioning it as a successful attempt by the Byzantine Emperor to save Constantinople * Sunday Telegraph (Seven) *The best book on the First Crusade ever written * Prof. Paul Chevedden *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.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

Peter Frankopan is currently Senior Research Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford and Faculty Fellow in Medieval and Modern Greek at Oxford University. He is Director-designate of the Centre for Byzantine Studies at Oxford. He took a First in History at Jesus College, Cambridge and completed his doctorate at Oxford, where he was Senior Scholar at Corpus Christi College, and Junior Research Fellow at Worcester College. He has lectured at leading universities all over the world, including at Cambridge, Yale, Harvard, NYU, King’s College London, the Institute of Historical Research and at Princeton. His work has been widely published in leading academic journals, including English Historical Review, Journal of Medieval History, Crusades, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies and in many edited volumes. His revised translation of The Alexiad by Anna Komnene was published in 2009.

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