Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2014 -

Writing in lively prose, Cobb (Islamic history, Univ. of Pennsylvania) effortlessly weaves disparate events across the Islamic Mediterranean world into a seamless narrative of the Crusades.  Though adhering to the standard theme of the Crusades in the Holy Land, he does not neglect events in Andalusia and influences in North Africa and Iraq.  Often peripheral to the "main event" in the Levant, the anecdotes and commentary Cobb incorporates provide much-needed context, such as how the Normans conquered Sicily or how the Abbasid caliphate viewed the Crusades.  This work will be what Amin Maalouf's The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (1984) was to a previous generation of readers in terms of providing the perspective of Muslims during the Crusades, but Cobb's research and interpretation are more scholarly.  Graduate students and scholars will appreciate the author's approach and method of weaving often unappreciated and overlooked events of Islamic history into the history of the Crusades.  Students and general readers will be swept away by the writing and narrative.  Finally, Cobb lucidly illustrates that, despite his book's title, most participants in the Crusades (on both sides) did not "race for paradise."Summing Up: Essential. All public and academic levels/libraries.