In Narrating the Crusades, Lee Manion aims “to explore the extensive and persistent influence of crusading narrative patterns and political thought on England … from the later Middle Ages to the early modern period” (212). Manion more than succeeds in this endeavor, offering a timely, impressively argued, and carefully researched intervention in the field. In so doing, Manion not only dramatically extends recent work on the impact of the crusades on late medieval and early modern English culture but offers clear solutions and alternatives to the limitations of previous approaches. Manion's interdisciplinary method allows him to demonstrate the extent to which this literature reflects the pervasive appeal of crusading, and “imagined alternative, albeit abstract solutions to real issues and often engaged in social criticism” (3). Through a series of meticulously organized and interlocked chapters, he makes a particularly strong case for the enduring and evolving nature of crusade narratives and the related themes of “loss and recovery” that course through the texts.

In chapter 1 Manion offers an innovative study of Richard Coer de Lyon (c. 1300), challenging established readings that have stressed the romance's protonationalism. Rather, Manion argues, Richard meditates most conspicuously on the precariousness of what he calls crusading's “associational forms” (a term drawn from the work of David Wallace and Marion Turner [20]). By focusing on Richard’s depiction of negotiations between cultural factions, and by showing how the romance's meditation on associational forms reflects a broader tendency in early fourteenth-century English writing, he argues that the romance is demonstrably “anti-national” in its scope, even as it meditates on themes of loss and recovery.

While situating Richard as a “foundational text” for the crusading romance genre, Manion then turns to Sir Isumbras (c. 1330) arguing that it demonstrates the influence of individual crusading practices on the development and production of medieval crusading romances. Here, Manion makes a strong case for the prevalence and popularity of “privy” crusading. Highlighting several historical examples of this practice, he argues convincingly that late medieval audiences would have read Isumbras predominately as a crusading romance. Whereas Richard interrogates crusading's associational forms, Manion suggests that Isumbras focuses on the intertwined projects of individual knightly reform and holy war. What allows these texts to coexist in the same subgenre, despite dramatically different approaches to and depictions of crusading, he argues, are their persistent meditations on loss and recovery. Considering them as part of the same grouping thus provides scholars with a clearer sense of the crusading romance genre's capaciousness and evolving nature through the fourteenth century.

In chapter 3, Manion further broadens the scope of the crusading romance subgenre by examining late fourteenth-century texts that highlight crusading destinations beyond the Holy Land. Through a wonderfully wrought discussion of the Southern Octavian (c. 1375) and The Sowdone of Babylon (c. 1400), Manion reveals how these romances, by focusing on Iberia, Italy, and France as destinations and territories in need of “recovery,” reflect the broadening ideation of late medieval crusading, even as they continue to reflect the sometimes competing investments in “private crusading and holy warfare” seen in other crusading romances (16). He deftly contextualizes these romances by examining key contemporaneous crusading texts—Phillipe de Mezieres's Epistre (1395), and John Clanvowe's The Two Ways (1391). By juxtaposing a text like The Sowdone of Babylon alongside John of Gaunt's Castilian crusade, he also persuasively demonstrates that late Middle English Charlemagne romances may be best understood as texts reflective of contemporaneous crusading endeavors.

In chapter 4 Manion offers an ambitious and meticulous survey of texts that reflect the enduring appeal of crusading romances in fifteenth- to seventeenth-century England. Evoking earlier strands of analysis, he argues that post-Reformation historians, poets, and playwrights were noticeably influenced by medieval literary representations of crusading. While carefully attending to the salient differences between medieval and early modern depictions of crusading, Manion offers an ambitious and innovative study of texts that range from Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine (1587), William Shakespeare's Othello (1604), and Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene (1590–96) to less-studied works such as James I's Lepanto (1585) and Thomas Heywood's The Four Prentices of London, with the Conquest of Jerusalem (c. 1592). By situating these texts in their cultural moments, and by positioning them alongside early modern historical writings (Richard Knolle's Generall Historie of the Turkes [1550–1610] and Thomas Fuller's Historie of the Holy Warre [1608–61]), Manion reveals how crusading endured as a concept and ideal in early modern England, even as authors worked to adapt crusading narratives for a largely Protestant audience.

Perhaps the greatest strength of the book lies in Manion's ability to treat a vast array of materials while maintaining a keen focus on its governing themes and arguments. He skillfully interconnects the chapters, in each working to affirm and expand on ideas explored previously. Another strength lies in Manion's shift, in the fourth chapter, from medieval to early modern literature. While balancing the salient differences of each period, he calls attention to significant and overlooked continuities between them. In doing so, he helps to dismantle rigid notions of periodization. Manion's comparative analyses, moreover, are persuasive and groundbreaking, and he has a true talent for situating literary works in their cultural moment. And while there are occasional instances where a reader might wish for more, these stand not as oversights but as a reflection of the complexities and richness of Manion's subject matter. Narrating the Crusades, then, simultaneously offers a thorough study of English crusading literature and an array of invitations for additional research into this literary tradition. Manion's prose, moreover, is lucid and wonderfully wrought, which makes for both an enriching and truly enjoyable reading experience.

In sum, Narrating the Crusades is an immaculately organized and interconnected argument that engages a wide variety of texts, draws compelling parallels between historical and literary works, and demonstrates both the necessity—and benefit—of an interdisciplinary approach to the crusading romance subgenre. Balancing previous scholarly treatments while calling for changes in perspective and method, Manion provides a model for insightful intervention.