[Borges]

There's a new book by British Historian Thomas Asbridge called ‘The Crusades’ which takes on the entire era and makes it cohere like an adventure novel. Apparently the Latin West was only too willing to also engage/fight the Greek East as well as team up with one Muslim sect to isolate others. They were surprisingly complex undertakings from a strategic point of view.

[wideawake]

They were surprisingly complex undertakings from a strategic point of view.

Sounds like a good recommendation.

They were necessarily complex, taking place intermittently over 200 years with an ever-changing coalition of Latin kingdoms, republics and organizations.

The Greeks themselves had a succession of dynastic struggles in which some players wanted to throw in with the Latins and others wanted to align with the Muslims.

The Muslims themselves had all kinds of internecine issues after the collapse of Abbasid supremacy, with Fatimid and anti-Fatimid factions, Abbasid revivalists, etc.

At any given point there were at least five players on the board, not two.