JONATHAN RILEY-SMITH is Dixie Professor Emeritus of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Cambridge, UK, and a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, UK.

• PrefacePreface to Second EditionPreface to Third EditionPreface to Fourth EditionMap: The Theatres of WarWhat Were the Crusades?A Just CauseLegitimate AuthorityWho Were the Crusaders?When were the Crusades?Chronology, 1095-1798Select Bibliography of Secondary WorksIndex.

'None of the growing number of rather good general books on the Crusades performs the same service in anything like the same measure as Riley-Smith's; no bibliography for an undergraduate course can afford to dispense with this book.' - Professor Peter Jackson, Keele University, UK 'An indispensable short introduction to a vast subject.' - Professor Thomas Madden, St Louis University, USA 'A fourth edition, 32 years after the first, is a tribute to the merits of this concise and perceptive book. A.W. Purdue, Times Higher Education 'If Bush had read this book - a new fourth edition of a seminal work first published in 1977 - he might have spoken more carefully on the White House lawn.' - Tribune