 |
Crusades:
Authors and audiences
Anthony Dale
116pp. HTANSW, Sydney 2007 |
Available from HTANSW:
Standard
price $20.00 + postage (GST inclusive).
HTA NSW member price $15.00 + postage
(GST inclusive)
This
resource booklet has been produced especially for ‘The
Crusades’ case study in the Extension History course.
Anthony Dale of Inverell High School, winner of a 2005
Westfield Premier’s History Scholarship travelled
to Britain and France in 2006 and conducted extensive
interviews with nine contemporary historians of the Crusades:
Jonathan Riley-Smith, Susan Edgington, Jonathan Phillips,
Rebecca Rist, Norman Housley, Sarah Lambert, Marcus Bull,
John France, Christopher Tyerman. The booklet that he
has produced is a transcript of these interviews.
The
booklet begins with a useful thumbnail sketch of the main
focus of each historian’s research, their approaches
to historiography and chief contribution to crusades research
– together with a short list of their major publications
in this field.
The
most useful feature of this resource is that the five
key questions of the Extension History syllabus form the
basis of each interview. Questions include “What
are the major debates currently dominating crusades studies?
Which historians are the main proponents of particular
debates? How and why have approaches to this debate changed
over time? What might be future directions and issues
in crusades research?”
The
interviews offer fascinating insights into the current
world of crusade historiography – and especially
the debates concerning the definition of a crusade and
the motivations of the crusaders. Many of the historians
also offer some interesting evaluations of each other’s
work in relation to their own studies.
Of
particular interest to students of Extension History are
the discussions concerning the context of each historian,
their background, what sparked their passion for History
in general and for the crusades in particular.
What
does emerge very clearly from the majority of the interviews
is the enormous influence of Jonathan Riley-Smith, as
teacher, mentor, PhD supervisor, empiricist and setter
of research agendas. Marcus Bull, a former student of
JRS says, “It’s like a small asteroid being
sucked into the gravity of an enormous planet!”
Students
and teachers will find this excellent resource an invaluable
guide for their crusade studies.
Toni Hurley
Click
here for order details
