The Long Crusade

Ever since the 1954 *Brown v. Board of Education* decision, which launched a national effort to desegregate American schools, education reform has been one of the most resonant, controversial, and perplexing social and political issues. In *The Long Crusade*, Raymond Wolters traces the history of the past half-century of school reform by telling the stories of its most influential writers, activists, and intellectual movements. These range from the "neo-progressives" (Jonathan Kozol, Howard Gardner, and Theodore Sizer) to "back to basics" reformers (Chris Whittle, Robert Slavin, and E. D. Hirsch) to contemporary advocates of "accountability" (Teach For America, Michelle Rhee, and Arne Duncan). Wolters concludes by profiling "contrarians" (Diane Ravitch, Robert Weissberg, and the "race realists"), who brought into question many of the orthodoxies of this period. America's educational crusades have been varied, but virtually all have shared a common fate: racial achievement gaps have never been closed. Wolters argues that these failures are not merely a result of bad policies. Underlying virtually all of these approaches has been the assumption that no innate cognitive differences exist between races. Wolters stresses that it is time to rethink what has been assumed-and to look with new eyes on the failures and achievements of the American educational system.

Why is Bill attracted to a girl he doesn't understand? And why is Selena obsessed with Bill, a man she doesn't even like? As this mis-matched pair circle around each other within their broken lives they are unaware the answer may lie many lifetimes ago when a seriously wounded knight of the crusades was nursed back to life by a slave boy. The couple share a deep bond of love and gratitude which neither is able to express in their present lives. But other forces are at work. The laughing giant stands over them directing them from afar towards final healing of their ancient wounds.

Crusades covers seven hundred years from the First Crusade (1095-1102) to the fall of Malta (1798) and draws together scholars working on theatres of war, their home fronts and settlements from the Baltic to Africa and from Spain to the Near East and on theology, law, literature, art, numismatics and economic, social, political and military history. Routledge publishes this journal for The Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East. Particular attention is given to the publication of historical sources in all relevant languages - narrative, homiletic and documentary - in trustworthy editions, but studies and interpretative essays are welcomed too. Crusades appears in both print and online editions.

According to tradition, the First Crusade began at the instigation of Pope Urban II and culminated in July 1099, when thousands of western European knights liberated Jerusalem from the rising menace of Islam. But what if the First Crusade's real catalyst lay far to the east of Rome? In this groundbreaking book, countering nearly a millennium of scholarship, Peter Frankopan reveals the untold history of the First Crusade. Nearly all historians of the First Crusade focus on the papacy and its willing warriors in the West, along with innumerable popular tales of bravery, tragedy, and resilience. In sharp contrast, Frankopan examines events from the East, in particular from Constantinople, seat of the Christian Byzantine Empire. The result is revelatory. The true instigator of the First Crusade, we see, was the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who in 1095, with his realm under siege from the Turks and on the point of collapse, begged the pope for military support. Basing his account on long-ignored eastern sources, Frankopan also gives a provocative and highly original explanation of the world-changing events that followed the First Crusade. The Vatican's victory cemented papal power, while Constantinople, the heart of the still-vital Byzantine Empire, never recovered. As a result, both Alexios and Byzantium were consigned to the margins of history. From Frankopan's revolutionary work, we gain a more faithful understanding of the way the taking of Jerusalem set the stage for western Europe's dominance up to the present day and shaped the modern world.

Based on the latest scholarship by experts in the field, this work provides an accessible guide to the Crusades fought for the liberation and defense of the Holy Land—one of the most enduring and consequential conflicts of the medieval world. The Crusades to the Holy Land were one of the most important religious and social movements to emerge over the course of the Middle Ages. The warfare of the Crusades affected nearly all of Western Europe and involved members of social groups from kings and knights down to serfs and paupers. The memory of this epic long-ago conflict affects relations between the Western and Islamic worlds in the present day. The Crusades to the Holy Land: The Essential Reference Guide provides almost 90 A–Z entries that detail the history of the Crusades launched from Western Europe for the liberation or defense of the Holy Land, covering the inception of the movement by Pope Urban II in 1095 up to the early 14th century. This concise single-volume work provides accessible articles and perspective essays on the main Crusade expeditions as well as the important crusaders, countries, places, and institutions involved. Each entry is accompanied by references for further reading. Readers will follow the career of Saladin from humble beginnings to becoming ruler of Syria and Egypt and reconquering almost all of the Holy Land from its Christian rulers; learn about the main sites and characteristics of the castles that were crucial to the Christian domination of the Holy Land; and understand the key aspects of crusading, from motivation and recruitment to practicalities of finance and transport. The reference guide also includes survey articles that provide readers with an overview of the original source materials written in Latin, Arabic, Greek, Hebrew, Armenian, and Syriac.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1872. The publishing house Anatiposi publishes historical books as reprints. Due to their age, these books may have missing pages or inferior quality. Our aim is to preserve these books and make them available to the public so that they do not get lost.

In this book, Megan Cassidy-Welch challenges the notion that using memories of war to articulate and communicate collective identity is exclusively a modern phenomenon. War and Memory at the Time of the Fifth Crusade explores how and why remembering war came to be culturally meaningful during the early thirteenth century. By the 1200s, discourses of crusading were deeply steeped in the language of memory: crusaders understood themselves to be acting in remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice and following in the footsteps of their ancestors. At the same time, the foundational narratives of the First Crusade began to be transformed by vernacular histories and the advent of crusading romance. Examining how the Fifth Crusade was remembered and commemorated during its triumphs and immediately after its disastrous conclusion, Cassidy-Welch brings a nuanced perspective to the prevailing historiography on war memory, showing that remembering war was significant and meaningful centuries before the advent of the nation-state. This thoughtful and novel study of the Fifth Crusade shows it to be a key moment in the history of remembering war and provides new insights into medieval communication. It will be invaluable reading for scholars interested in the Fifth Crusade, medieval war memory, and the use of war memory.

In medieval Occitania (southern France), troubadours and monastic creators fostered a vibrant musical culture. In response to the early Crusade campaigns of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Christians of the region turned to producing monophonic, poetic song, encompassing both secular and sacred genres. These works assert shifting regional identities and worldviews, exploring devotional practices and religious beliefs, overlaid with notions of contemporaneous geopolitics and secular, intellectual interests. Mapping Medieval Identities in Occitanian Crusade Song demonstrates the profound impact the Crusades had on two seemingly discrete musical-poetic practices: the Latin, sacred Aquitanian versus, associated with Christian devotion, and the vernacular troubadour lyric, associated with courtly love. Rachel May Golden investigates how such Crusade songs distinctively arose out of their geographic environment, uncovering intersections between the beginning of Holy War and the emergence of new styles of poetic-musical composition. She brings together sacred and secular genres of the region to reveal the inventiveness of new composition and the imaginative scope of the Crusades within medieval culture. These songs reflect both the outer world and interior lives, and often their conjunction, giving shape and expression to concerns with the Occitanian homeland, spatial aspects of the Crusades, and newly emerging positions within socio-political history. Drawing on approaches from cultural geography, literary studies, and musicology, Mapping Medieval Identities in Occitanian Crusade Song provides a timely perspective on geopolitical and cultural interactions between nations.