An innovative take on the early Crusades , firmly situating them within the broader medieval Near East. Approaching from over a dozen individual perspectives (empress, sultan, princess, nobleman, patriarch, assassin) Nicholas Morton weaves a dizzying array of contexts into a coherent whole , one in which the Crusades become an integral piece of a larger civilizational story. In these pages complexity reigns: adversaries become allies, political and religious interests intertwine, and fanaticism and avarice give way to tolerance and friendship - and back again . Challenging binary notions of Muslim-Christian, right-wrong, and good-bad.