The Crusader Storm

A Global History of the Wars for the Middle East

Nicholas Morton

From the First Crusade to Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem, this is the story how cultures collided and reshaped the medieval Middle East.

From their foundational era in 1097 to Saladin's conquest of Jerusalem almost a century later, the Crusader States transformed the Middle Eastern world. In an era shaped by many conflicts, this was not simply a war between Christianity and Islam, but an epic contest among multiple rival empires, dynasties, and cultures.

The Crusader Storm unfolds through a kaleidoscope of perspectives: a Byzantine renegade, a crusader princess, a Turkish matriarch, a young Arab nobleman, a Syriac archbishop, Saladin's leading commander, and the vizier of Egypt. Between them, information, technologies, and ideas—as well as weapons—crossed borders at astonishing speed as their societies fought, allied, and traded. Their entangled fates reshaped not only the Middle East, but the medieval world itself.

Drawing on sources from Arabic, Greek, Syriac, Armenian, Latin, and Hebrew traditions, Nicholas Morton's enthralling panorama transforms our understanding of the Crusades, revealing these wars not as a single clash of faiths, but as a dynamic era of war, commerce, innovation, and exchange that defined the course of history.

Nicholas Morton is a professor at Nottingham Trent University. He is the author or editor of ten books, including The Mongol Storm and The Field of Blood. Morton lives in Nottinghamshire, England.

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Endorsements & Reviews

Praise for Nicholas Morton’s The Mongol Storm:

“A remarkable scholarly achievement.” The New Yorker

“This expert study casts the Middle Ages in a new light.” Publishers Weekly

“The Mongol Storm is an elegant reproach to the sort of academic history seen in narrow studies that are of interest only to other academic historians, exclude the general reader and, worst of all, are frankly unreadable. It is a reminder that the best history writing . . . is eminently readable. What is the point of it otherwise?” The Sunday Times (London)

"A sobering account told with a stark Hobbesian realism, yet with a light writerly touch for all that.” - The Los Angeles Review of Books

“[An] erudite, often thrilling and much-needed study. This is imperial history at its most ‘complex and messy’, but Morton passes little judgement . . . instead, he scrupulously contextualises all the actors within the belief systems of their day, and the harsh realities of their lives.” The Daily Telegraph

“With powerful prose, Morton leads readers through the complicated affairs of the Medieval Near East. A virtue of Morton’s book is that it doesn’t simplify anything but makes the most complicated parts understandable. For anyone who loves history, especially with military and diplomatic focuses.” - Library Journal

“A tremendous book. This is, at heart, a timeless story about the power of the survival instinct.” The Critic

“This is the most exciting study of the Mongols and their encounters with the peoples of the Near East I have ever read. It is a story of epic proportions demanding much from an historian. Morton rises to the challenge. His scholarship is impeccable, and his judgments are judicious and compelling. He has an exceptional facility for finding the apt quotation to underscore his points, and his prose is precise, clear, and elegant. I found it extremely difficult to put this marvelous book down. William Chester Jordan, Princeton University

“When Mongol armies arrived in the Near East in the later Middle Ages, they transformed the region utterly and irreversibly. Nicholas Morton’s new history of their extraordinary deeds and conquests is deeply researched and elegantly written—essential reading for anyone interested in the descendants of Genghis Khan in the age of the Crusades.” Dan Jones, New York Times bestselling author of The Templars

“Morton’s The Mongol Storm is a well-researched and lucidly written book that will transform thinking about the great transitions of the Middle Ages. As medieval studies expands its focus onto more global connections, Morton’s book enables readers to see how war and trade, fear of violence, and desire for material goods tied this vast expanse together. This is a history we’ve been needing for some time." Monica Green, fellow, the Medival Academy of America, and independent scholar

“This outstanding book takes a deep look at Mongol history and the Islamic world over two centuries. Rulers of the largest land empire in history, extending from Korea to Poland, the Mongols are today often associated with conquest and destruction. Morton’s invaluable book shows how the Muslim world was profoundly reconfigured, and the broader history of our planet influenced for centuries to come, by the mandate from heaven.” - Taef El-Azhari, University of Helwan, Egypt

“An accessible and gripping narrative of the most important developments of the late medieval Near East.” Anthony Kaldellis, University of Chicago