Voyages, battles, sieges and slaughter: Dan Jones's tumultuous and thrilling history of the crusades is one of the best... Jones is exceptionally good at giving evocative snapshots of medieval life, sometimes poignant, sometimes pure Monty Python'

Sunday Times

This is rollercoaster history... Dan Jones has a nose for the dramatic, disgusting and bizarre... Every page of his extraordinary book provides vivid evidence of the Crusades' continuing ability to mesmerise'

The Times

A powerful story brilliantly told. Dan Jones writes with pace, wit and insight

Helen Castor

A fresh and vibrant account of a conflict that raged across medieval centuries

Jonathan Phillips

Compelling... Jones is adept at teasing out the array of motivations that propelled the crusaders on an arduous, often harrowing, journey to an uncertain, violent destination... An avowedly pluralist account in which equal weight is given to the experiences of Christians and Muslims... Jones has written an epic of his own here, as complex as it is compelling'

Prospect

Dan Jones has the priceless ability to write page-turning narrative history underpinned by authoritative scholarship. Never before has the era of the Crusades been depicted in such bright and striking colours, or their story told with such gusto

Edinburgh Reporter