The Templars

Description

THE SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The Knights Templar were the wealthiest, most powerful - and most secretive - of the military orders that flourished in the crusading era. Their story - encompassing as it does the greatest international conflict of the Middle Ages, a network of international finance, a swift rise in wealth and influence followed by a bloody and humiliating fall - has left a comet's tail of mystery that continues to fascinate and inspire historians, novelists and conspiracy theorists.

Dan Jones is a broadcaster, award-winning journalist and pioneer of the resurgence of interest in medieval history. He is the bestselling author of Summer of Blood, The Plantagenets, Magna Carta and Realm Divided. He lives in London.

'[The Templars'] colourful story is grippingly told by the excellent Dan Jones' Mail on Sunday. 'Full of tales of bloodshed, bravery and betrayal, this is a passionate guide to the unstoppable rise and spectacular fall of the poster boys of the Middle Ages' Tablet, Books of the Year. 'When it comes to rip-roaring medieval narratives, Jones has few peers, and in the Templars he finds the perfect subject' The Sunday Times History Books of the Year. 'Told with all Jones's usual verve and panache, this is a dramatic and gripping tale of courage and stupidity, faith and betrayal' Mail on Sunday. 'Snappy, well-paced ... The author's ambition, he says, is to tell the story of the Templars in a straightforward way and "to write a book that will entertain as well as inform". He has done precisely that' Daily Telegraph. 'A fascinating story of fanaticism ... Jones is certainly an entertainer, but also a fine historian who knows how to render serious scholarship into accessible prose. Seldom does one find serious history that is so easy to read' The Times. 'Fast-paced narrative history depicted with irresistible verve, bloody battle scenes and moments of laugh-out-loud wit ... This is another triumphant tale from a historian who writes as addictively as any page-turning novelist' Observer. 'The story of the Templars, the ultimate holy warriors, is an extraordinary saga of fanaticism, bravery, treachery and betrayal, and in Dan Jones they have a worthy chronicler. The Templars is a wonderful book!' Bernard Cornwall, author of The Last Kingdom. 'A fresh, muscular and compelling history of the ultimate military-religious crusading order, combining sensible scholarship with narrative swagger, featuring a cast of exuberantly monstrous sword-swingers spattering Christian and Islamic blood from Spain to Jerusalem' Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem: The Biography. 'Exhilarating, epic, sword-swinging history ... A skilful storyteller [...] he enlivens the narrative with bloodcurdling details and arresting turns of phrase ... There is also fine scholarly intuition' TLS.