This article examines the construction of alterity in modern crusade studies. Instead of looking at processes of "othering" in the medieval sources, it tries to understand how modern historiography constructs "others" (be it Muslims or medieval crusaders) and uncovers these constructions as products of a long and conflictual tradition of scholarly discourse. The main argument is that, up to a certain extent, the self-image of (post-)modern, western society determines how much the objects of historical research appear to be similar to "us" or as "others". These constructions of either continuity/identity or alterity seem to be natural processes of history writing, but the underlying judgements on cultural and moral difference between "us" and "them" are called into question here.
