Rating: 3 out of 5
It is always interesting to read a short general history: what an author consider noteworthy versus what one does not. In general, it’s clear that even most of the small mentions could be covered in a lot more detail. In this case, Mr Pluskowski’s version of the history of the Teutonic Order feels for me weaker than that of Klaus Militzer though it is newer and should indeed have not found it very difficult to correct a number of the errors presented in Militzer’s work. On the whole, however, I will consider it a positive book and shedding light on a relatively low coverage subject is to be praised.
The negatives: when trying to fit so much into a general history, I do not see the benefit to include mentions of very short periods or endeavours. The Teutonic Order’s time in Transylvania, therefore, doesn’t really deserve the coverage it had here, especially as at no point does it look like the author is basing himself on the newest research. The coverage of the Order’s establishment in Poland and Kulmland is similarly biased, echoing earlier Teutonic themes of the subversion of the Order of Dobrin, which however are pretty strongly disproven by newer research.
The author’s own subject of interest seems to lie in the Order’s history in Prussia. The Livonian side is mentioned as an afterthought while the German branch comes into its own only after the fall of Prussia. Meanwhile both the military and the political endeavours that led to these events are described only barely and I would say definitely not in the complexity they deserve. Neither is the overview of the way the Order was governed sufficiently thorough in my estimation: the parts concerning the early development of the general chapter were pretty interesting, but then we lose nearly all of its later development. And, in contrast, Militzer had a pretty long discourse, for example, on how the Statutes of Orseln affected the order while this subject is also barely mentioned in this work.
Therefore, this ranks as an okay very basic introduction into the subject, but unlikely to offer much for people who are more familiar with the topic.
