Rock, Paper, Swords! — Episode: The Crusader Storm with Nicholas Morton Released 12th June 2026

Matthew Harffy and Justin Hill are joined by historian Nicholas Morton, associate professor at Nottingham Trent University and author of the new book The Crusader Storm: A Global History of the Wars for the Middle East (out 4th June 2026).

The Crusades are one of history's most argued-over subjects — and Nicholas Morton thinks most people have got them wrong. In this wide-ranging conversation, he makes the case that the wars for the Holy Land were never a simple clash between Christianity and Islam, but a messy, many-sided contest between rival empires, dynasties and cultures.

Along the way we talk about the extraordinary cast of individuals who populate his book — from a remarkably long-lived Arab nobleman who witnessed nearly the entire era, to Syriac Christians playing the long game between warring powers. We explore how Muslim Bedouin groups allied with the Crusaders, why Islamic medicine was flowing back to Western Europe, and how the demands of supplying the Crusader States drove a dramatic leap forward in medieval shipbuilding. We also get into the evolution of Crusader castles, the trade routes that made the Middle East the most strategically valuable region on earth, and what — if anything — the medieval period can tell us about the modern one.

Plus: how do you write popular history without guessing? Can AI translate ancient Syriac? And is Nicholas Morton already thinking about an Ottoman Storm?

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