This is narrative history as it should be done: a story that’s as compelling to read as any novel but which is nevertheless deeply grounded in the primary sources with the necessary leavening of later scholarly analysis. It’s not actually an easy balance to pull off but Thomas Smith does so masterfully. He sets his stall out in the very first pages where he reconstructs the Crusader assault on a fortified stone tower squatting in the middle of the River Nile, guarding access to the vital port city of Damietta. Smith vividly brings the battle to life, plunging the reader into the reality of crusading, where knights far from home had to adapt to entirely new conditions and challenges. In this case, they adapted by building floating assault stations, lashing together boats and building siege towers on them to allow their knights direct access to the upper storey of the Ayyubid fort.

But not only does Smith bring these campaigning vignettes to vivid life, he also illuminates the context for the calling of the Fifth Crusade, the reasons for its enthusiastic adoption and the complex preparations necessary to transport thousands of knights and their accompanying logistics across Europe and the Mediterranean. Where Smith really shines, though, is in showing how a campaign that started so well slowly fell apart as the result of a cascade of poor decisions, each of little particular importance but ultimately fatal when they came together in the disastrous decision to march south on Cairo.

If you read just one book about the Fifth Crusade, read this one.