The Baltic Crusades: The Teutonic Knights and the Birth of Europe’s Most Dangerous Frontier

The Teutonic Knights. Pagan forests. Crusade-by-fire. And the medieval origin story behind modern Europe’s most volatile borderlands.Antonia Senior and historian Roger Moorhouse explore the Baltic Crusades through Alexander Pluskowski’s Black Cross, tracing how the Teutonic Order reshaped the Baltic world — and how its legacy fed later nationalism, Prussian power, Soviet mythmaking, and even Nazi ideology.From Alexander Nevsky’s Battle on the Ice to Grunwald/Tannenberg, this is medieval history with huge modern consequences.Main Book DiscussedBlack Cross: A History of the Baltic Crusades — Alexander PluskowskiBaltic: The Future of Europe — Oliver MoodyNorthern Shores: A History of the Baltic Sea and Its Peoples — Alan PalmerForgotten Land: Searching for the Lost Province of East Prussia — Max EgremontIron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 — Christopher ClarkStalin’s Apostles: The New History of the Cambridge Five — Antonia SeniorWhen the Doves Disappeared — Sofi OksanenPurge — Sofi OksanenDog Park — Sofi Oksanen