The History of Fortification

Glory is a celebration of a little-known act of mass courage during the Civil War. Simply put, the heroes involved have been ignored by history due to racism. Those heroes were the all-black members of the 54th Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, headed by Col. Robert Gould Shaw (Matthew Broderick), the son of an influential abolitionist (played by an uncredited Jane Alexander). Despite the fact that the Civil War is ostensibly being fought on their behalf, the black soldiers are denied virtually every privilege and amenity that is matter of course for their white counterparts; as in armies past and future, they are given the most menial and demeaning of tasks. Still, none of the soldiers quit the regiment when given the chance….

This is a general account of the history and architecture of Crusader castles in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, County of Tripoli and Principality of Antioch between 1099 and 1291, the years during which the Crusaders had a permanent presence on the Levantine coast. Extensive use is made of contemporary chronicles to show the reasons why castles were built and how they were used in peace and war. The book is fully illustrated by photographs, drawings and plans, and contains a comprehensive bibliography.
1. Prologue to the study of crusader castles; 2. Fortification in the east and west before the First Crusade; 3. Castles in the twelfth-century Kingdom of Jerusalem; 4. Twelfth-century castles in the northern states (County of Tripoli, Principality of Antioch and County of Edessa); 5. Siege warfare in the crusader lands; 6. Nobles, Templars and Teutonic knights in the thirteenth century; 7. The Hospitallers in Tripoli and Antioch; 8. Muslim castles of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; Postscript: crusader castles and the west.