This is historian Zoë Oldenbourg’s long-awaited masterpiece: an immensely exciting romance, in the highest sense, which has at the same time an unsparingly realistic approach to the Middle Ages. With subtlety and exceptional sensitivity, Oldenbourg analyzes the complicated tangle of currents and ideas that motivated the Crusades.
More than simply a religious phenomenon or a manifestation of pure aggression, the Crusades were the result of a religious climate that led people of all walks of life to leave their homes and follow the unattainable ideal of heaven on earth. Oldenbourg evokes the whole structure of the feudal society and reveals the ingenuity of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. This story is peopled with such great personalities as Bohemond, Tancred, Peter the Hermit, Godfrey of Bouillon, Saladin, and Richard the Lionheart.
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“[Wanda McCaddon] has the enviable knack of being able to read long, complex, nonfictional narratives with great verve and an inner enthusiasm which transfers itself to her audience.”
— Kliatt
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Zoé Oldenbourg (1916–2002) born in St. Petersburg, she emigrated with her family to Paris in 1925 and was educated at the Lycée Molière and the Sorbonne. She authored a number of outstanding historical novels, including The World Is Not Enough and The Cornerstone, which won the Prix Fémina in 1953.
Wanda McCaddon (d. 2023) narrated well over six hundred titles for major audiobook publishers, sometimes with the pseudonym Nadia May or Donada Peters. She earned the prestigious Audio Award for best narration and numerous Earphones Awards. She was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine.