The great names of the era live once more: Barbarossa, Saladin, Emperor Frederick II, Louis IX, Richard the Lionheart, Peter the Hermit, the Knights Templars and Teutonic Knights, St. Elmo's fire, and others. Follow their exploits, from the "first Holocaust" in 1096, through the great siege of Jerusalem, the sacking of Constantinople, to Napoleon's 1798 taking of Malta, which finally ended 700 years of bloodshed. Startling new discoveries reveal a new appreciation of the trials and triumphs of the Crusaders -- and of how we are still living in the world they created.