History of the Crusades Sharyn Eastaugh

A decent narrative history but...

This is a decent narrative history of the Crusades. The host seems familiar with material and her scripts are well planned out in chronological order. It's also refreshing to hear from a female podcaster when most history podcasts seem to be dominated by males. Unlike History of Rome and History of Byzantium, she doesn't give any cultural, social, or geographic context, which would have been nice. Also, she seems to have a few annoying habits like repeating the same phrases again and again. For example, "to say x, would be an understatement," "if you guessed x, you would be right," ending sentences with "(adjective), very (adjective)," and unnecessarily saying "and I quote/end quote" when citing things that are obviously quotes. Oh, and she always says "Roman numeral X" instead of just saying the number. If you're playing a drinking game, I guess it wouldn't be so annoying, but I just wish she'd change up her phrases once in a while. Anyways, if you want a narrative history of the Crusades, this will do the trick.