Crusading in the Long Nineteenth Century, 1798–1928

Engaging the Crusades is a series of concise volumes (up to 50,000 words) which offer initial windows into the ways in which the crusades have been used in the last two centuries, demonstrating that the memory of the crusades is an important and emerging subject. Together these studies suggest that the memory of the crusades, in the modern period, is a productive, exciting, and much needed area of investigation.

Crusading in the Long Nineteenth Century offers a trans-cultural examination of “crusade medievalism”, that is the use of the symbolism and rhetoric of the crusades in the popular and political discourse of the long nineteenth century. Using a variety of sources, from missionary accounts to children’s literature, the book includes an examination of “crusade medievalism” through the politics of a European-wide audience, from states which could claim some relationship to medieval crusading, to those regions where crusading was not part of a national historical heritage. It also examines how the Islamicate world looked upon the crusades in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

By looking at the phenomenon of “crusade medievalism” from a multi-national perspective, this volume is of interest to medievalists, modernists, and those interested in the crusades in general.