The Crusades were a startling and spectacular phenomenon which exerted a powerful influence on European development over a period of many centuries. Much recent writing has been devoted to explaining how the crusades began and what they achieved. Aimed both at postgraduates and at professional academics, this volume is intended as an introductory guide and analysis of how different aspects of crusading studies have developed. Rather than giving an account of events, each chapter offers an interpretative and historiographical study. The contributors include older scholars with a well-established reputation within and outside the field of crusading studies and younger scholars whose work has already made an impact within the field, working in France, Germany, Greece, the UK and the USA. Their various approaches to the debates they discuss present readers who are approaching the subject for the first time with an overview of the wide spectrum of views held by scholars in this area.