Over the next several posts, I will be presenting a sustained, multi‑part (and at times) longform interview with my dear friend, medieval historian Dr. Alfred J. Andrea, on the occasion of his forthcoming volume, Traveling to the “Tartars”: Three Missions to the Mongols, 1245–1248 (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2026). This project brings together six major [ ]
Something a bit different. Early crusaders were volunteers, who took vows to go on a crusade, rather than members of a professional army. As a result, they had to fund themselves for the duration of a crusade, which could often involve traveling across continents over a period of years and often experiencing extraordinary hardships and [ ]
As editors for Hackett Publishing’s Myths of History Series, Alfred J. Andrea and I were quite pleased to have recruited scholar Gretchen Starr-Lebeau to write Seven Myths of the Spanish Inquisition (2023) for the series. Like all of the historical topics covered in the series, many popular myths about the Spanish Inquisition are emphasized in [ ]
Having recently received hardback copies of a third multivolume encyclopedia that I have either edited or authored, I sometimes get questions about the process. Frankly, there are not a lot of written resources for academics considering taking on such a project for the first time, but you can count on senior scholars to share their [ ]
The following essay, by Andrew Holt, is republished from John D. Hosler s edited volume, Seven Myths of Military History (Hackett, 2022). It is provided here with both the permission of Professor Hosler and Hackett Publishing. Thoughtful feedback and comments are welcome and can be emailed directly to the author at aholt@fscj.edu. - Chapter 1. War [ ]
Main Image: Santiago Mataespañois, (Santiago, Killer of Spaniards) Museo das Peregrinacións e de Santiago. Photo by A. J. Andrea. See also: Guest Essay: Santiago Matamoros by Alfred J. Andrea - Santiago Matamoros was every bit as much the patron of the Spaniards’ conquests in the Americas as he had been during the preceding four and a [ ]
Main Image (Above): Francisco Camilo, El Apóstol Santiago a caballo o Santiago Matamoros (1649), Prado Museum. Source: https://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/obra-de-arte/el-apostol-santiago-a-caballo-o-santiago-matamoros/cc593ac0-b3bf-428d-90fa-87f9a7d80294 (accessed December 15, 2020. The following essay is by Alfred J. Andrea, the former president of the World History Association, a mentor, and…
The following essay is by Alfred J. Andrea, the former president of the World History Association, a mentor, and a noted medieval historian. In it, he provides background on how our forthcoming book Sanctified Violence: Holy War in World History, was envisioned and came together. Religion is a shield against life’s assaults. But it [ ]
Professor John D. Hosler’s fascinating book on the siege of Acre during the Third Crusade provides a brief, but interesting, consideration of the interactions that sometimes took place between combatants during the siege. Regardless of the violence of the siege, Hosler notes that “the spaces between the ramparts…were not necessarily a zone of death.” The [ ]