The Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades by Roger Crowley
The Accursed Tower: The Fall of Acre and the End of the Crusades by Roger Crowley
The 1292 siege of Acre was the Alamo of the Christian Crusades -- the final bloody battle for the Holy Land. After a siege of six weeks, on May 18, the last Christian stronghold fell to the Mamluk army. The event marked the end of two centuries of Christian-Muslim warfare in one decisive encounter, effectively closing Christendom's two-hundred-year adventure in the "Kingdom of Jerusalem."
In The Accursed Tower, bestselling author Roger Crowley delivers a lively narrative of the lead-up to the siege and a vivid, blow-by-blow account of the climactic battle. Both Muslims and Christians were acutely aware of the finality of this outcome, which crystallized a bitter legacy for both Islam and Christendom that resonated beyond the drama of the fighting or the strategic importance of this one city. Calls for a resurrected crusade echoed into the sixteenth century, but the dream of a Christian Jerusalem ultimately died with Acre's fall. Drawing on extant Arabic sources as well as untranslated Latin documents, Crowley sets the conflict within the context of the collapsing crusader kingdoms and resurgent Islamic jihad, and he demonstrates how the battle of Acre was notable for technical advances in military planning and siege warfare and extraordinary for its individual heroism and vicious slaughter.
A gripping depiction of the crusader era told through its dramatic last moments, The Accursed Tower offers an essential new view on a crucial turning point in world history.
BASIC BOOKS, HARDCOVER, 1ST EDITION, 1ST PRINTING, 2019.
THIS IS A BRAND NEW BOOK.