Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
The Folio Society (1996), Hardcover
Description
Sir Steven Runciman's three volume A History of the Crusades, one of the great classics of English historical writing, is now being reissued. Volume I deals completely with the First Crusade and the foundation of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Volume II describes the Frankish states of Outremer from the accession of King Baldwin I to the re-conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin, and in the final volume, Runciman examines the revival of the Frankish kingdom from the time of the Third Crusade until its collapse a century later. The interwoven themes of the book include: Christiandom, the replacement of the cultured Ayubites by the less sympathetic Mameluks as leader of the Moslem world, and the coming of the Mongols. Runciman includes a chapter on architecture and the arts, and an epilogue on the last manifestations of the Crusading spirit.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Katherine_Ashe
Incomparable. A work of history so fine it sets a standard for other to be measured against.
LibraryThing member Tendulkar01
Grand history in the great Oxbridge tradition, where historians pay as much attention to their style as they do to their sources.
LibraryThing member MartinLake
A classic which tells the story of the Crusades in the Middle East with verve and style. It was written in the 1950's and other books are, naturally, more up to date in research. Runciman remains an excellent introduction to this tangled, tempestous time. His characters are larger than life and
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rendered with humanity, even if not always with sympathy. Show Less
LibraryThing member nandadevi
It is difficult to talk about Runciman or his History of the Crusades without using superlatives. Published between 1951 and 1954 this three volume set is a timeless masterpiece. His history of this original 'Clash of Civilizations' is at once tragic, grand, and sobering. There is an extraordinary
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immediacy about Runciman's history, as if you were reading newspaper reports day by day. Runciman's genius was not only to be able to make history come alive, but to dissect and lay out before anyone who cared to find them, the themes and principles governing Middle Eastern politics that resonate down to today. Comparison’s are difficult, but if you imagine the best of Barbara Tuchman, and Shelby Foote’s history of the Civil War (subsequently televised), you begin to get the picture. Anyone who claims to know anything or wants to know more about the Middle East should read this book. Show Less
LibraryThing member waltzmn
The style is there. What about the substance?
Let there be no mistake: Steven Runciman's work on the crusades is brilliantly written. Stylistically, it is one of the great works of the historian's art. If you want a good general history of the Crusades, you can hardly hope for better.
But... is it
This seems a horrid question to ask about a work that is a genuine tour de force. But Runciman's footnotes are, to be honest, rather thin on the ground. And one of the sad facts about the Crusades is that just about everyone who wrote at the time had an axe to grind -- usually to blame Somebody Else (Christians, Moslems, That Other King) for everything that had gone wrong. To avoid an endless list of "He said... She said..." controversies, Runciman often takes what seems to him most reasonable, and runs with it. His assumptions are (probably) usually right, and always reasonable -- he really was a brilliant scholar who knew the era well. But they aren't certain.
This really doesn't matter much to the casual reader. And there is no question: I enjoy reading Runciman, far more than any other history of the Crusades, short or long. It is a work of art. But it is now badly out of date, and it is full of hypotheses that can too easily be confused with fact. Read it, love it, treasure it -- but verify it.
Let there be no mistake: Steven Runciman's work on the crusades is brilliantly written. Stylistically, it is one of the great works of the historian's art. If you want a good general history of the Crusades, you can hardly hope for better.
But... is it
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reliable?This seems a horrid question to ask about a work that is a genuine tour de force. But Runciman's footnotes are, to be honest, rather thin on the ground. And one of the sad facts about the Crusades is that just about everyone who wrote at the time had an axe to grind -- usually to blame Somebody Else (Christians, Moslems, That Other King) for everything that had gone wrong. To avoid an endless list of "He said... She said..." controversies, Runciman often takes what seems to him most reasonable, and runs with it. His assumptions are (probably) usually right, and always reasonable -- he really was a brilliant scholar who knew the era well. But they aren't certain.
This really doesn't matter much to the casual reader. And there is no question: I enjoy reading Runciman, far more than any other history of the Crusades, short or long. It is a work of art. But it is now badly out of date, and it is full of hypotheses that can too easily be confused with fact. Read it, love it, treasure it -- but verify it.
Show Less
Language
Original publication date
1951-1952-1954 (1st UK original publishing, Cambridge university press)
1957 (New 3 volumes édition, Cambridge university press)
1989 (New 3 volumes édition, Cambridge university press)
2000-10-16 (1e traduction et édition française des 3 tomes en 1 volume, Editions Dagorno)
2006-02-16 (Nouvelle édition française des 3 tomes en 1 volume, Tallandier)