Rating: 
Summary: Better Than Fiction!
Review: A tremendously readable and understandable rendition of events that are but rarely recalled or understood. Runciman does a great job of making this read like an adventure without heros or good guys. I can't wait to read Vol. 2!
Rating:
Summary: You have entered a master's house.
Review: I first encountered this extraordinary history back in the early '70s as a medieval student and then again some years ago beyond study and therefore with considerably more money-at least compared to a student-and I was able to purchase this wonderful set.I freely admit not having read the three volumes cover to cover but have parachuted in to various topics within the span of information covered by the set and I can attest to the brilliance of Runciman's writing. He represents the best of historical writing in that he is the undoubted master of his sources and their subject matter but he can also convey the extraordinary complexity of these centuries in a writing style that is at once understandable and also colourful. To my mind he is the best of the best because, as undoubted master of his subject, he is also able to tease out and convey the human interest, the drama and the wrenching saddness of all that was the Crusades. Steven Runciman has transcended history as few other historians of any time have been able to do. He has imbued the structure of history with the richness of a night at the opera or theatre-the reader is presented with the panoply of humanness at every turn and I believe this is the true mark of a master's hand.
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Summary: The best narrative of the two centuries of Outremer
Review: I have read this Cambridge edition of Sir Steven Runciman's great three-volume "History of the Crusades". I can only say that the narrative is excelent, and that in my opinion it is difficult to find another book that describes so well, and in both detailed and concise ways, the two centuries of history of the Frankish states in Syria. The first volume comprises the whole first Crusade, from its origins to the establishment of the four Latin states: the Principality of Antioch, the counties of Edessa and Tripoli, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The second volume tells the history of those princedoms for almost a century, including the fall of Edessa, until the great defeat of the first Kingdom of Jerusalem, that for a long time had been an established Christian power in Palestine, extending well beyond the Jordan river. The third volume speaks of the last century of Outremer, reduced only to coast defenses, no longer powerful, and always in peril, until the fall of (St. John of) Accre in 1291. Two centuries where the main characters are the Frankish and Norman lords of the first Crusade, the Eastern Roman emperors of Constantinople (especially Alexius, John and Manuel Comnenus) and the now weak though organized Byzantine armies, the Counts of Edessa and Tripoli, the Princes of Antioch, the Kings of the Jerusalem (especially until the end of the first and mighty Kingdom), the pious Christian crusaders and the evil adventurers, the great and wise Saladin, Richard the Lionheart and the men of the Third Crusade, the shamefull venetians and Frenchmen who pillaged Constantinople in the so-called "Fourth Crusade", the fighting monks of the three great military orders (Temple, Hospital and Teutonic Knights), the Palestine-born barons who kept what remained of the Christian Holy Land, the Nestorian Mongols, the native Christians of Syrian or Greek stock, the Arab neighbours, the Armenian princedom in Asia Minor, the Moslem Turks and other related stocks, the cruel Egyptian Mameluks. It is a history of great achievements, brave and pious actions, great and doomed expeditions, treasons, cruelty (on both sides), great honour (Saladin is a good exemple), terrible defeats, a sudden resurrection, religious tolerance and also intolerance, etc. In summary, these three volumes include a wide range of developments, always seen from an independent and critical standpoint. Two hundred years of the history of a whole world that once existed and now is forever gone. Today its only remants are those Arab-speaking eastern Christians who due to the Crusader's activities turned to obbey the Roman Church, some Latin churches and castles, and the remembrances (brought again to life by this work) of one of mankind's greatest adventures.
Rating:
Summary: I was not disappointed!
Review: I've read other books that only touch on the Crusades, so I was hoping to fill the gaps in my knowledge. This book was great! It's informative and well written in a clear and easy style. I recommend this book for anyone who would like a thoughtful account of the Crusades based on information we have from the period.
Rating:
Summary: I was not disappointed!
Review: I've read other books that only touch on the Crusades, so I was hoping to fill the gaps in my knowledge. This book was great! It's informative and well written in a clear and easy style. I recommend this book for anyone who would like a thoughtful account of the Crusades based on information we have from the period.
Rating:
Summary: Gotterdamerung
Review: In the first instalment, it was all Christian uphill; in the second, there was the Arab renaissance. If Runciman were a novelist the Christians might do better in this one; as he is not, it is virtually downhill all the way for the Crusaders: indeed, apart from a brief growth spurt under Richard the Lionheart they suffer humiliation and worse. Humiliation in the sense of total expulsion from the Holy Land; "worse" in that the Fourth Crusade degenerates into the Sack of Constantinople - which Runciman condemns as one of the greatest crimes in history. On another level, this is the "Celebrity Crusaders'" edition - not only does this feature Coeur de Lion, we also meet Saladin, Edward I of England (Braveheart's villain), Emperor Frederick II (Stupor Mundi) and Saint Louis (Louis IX) of France - plus a cameo from Ghengkis Khan. But, at the close of two centuries' worth of defeats, the verdict is delivered in the closing chapter, where Runciman denounces the entire crusades as a colossal "fiasco." Maybe so, but a terrific story.
Rating:
Summary: Peter the Hermit and Assorted Friends
Review: Reading Runciman, one is in the company of a master craftsman. While Pope Urban's fiery sermon at Clermont is one of the central events in this story, Runciman brings the focus even earlier to the Muslim conquests of Jerusalem and the crisis in leadership in the Byzantine state. From there, we meet crusading kings, knights and monks as they travel through Constantinople, onward to Antioch, Aleppo and finally to the Holy City itself. The definitive Crusading text, a true epic - and yet by the end, we've still got two centuries to go.
Rating:
Summary: Peter the Hermit and Assorted Friends
Review: Reading Runciman, one is in the company of a master craftsman. While Pope Urban's fiery sermon at Clermont is one of the central events in this story, Runciman brings the focus even earlier to the Muslim conquests of Jerusalem and the crisis in leadership in the Byzantine state. From there, we meet crusading kings, knights and monks as they travel through Constantinople, onward to Antioch, Aleppo and finally to the Holy City itself. The definitive Crusading text, a true epic - and yet by the end, we've still got two centuries to go.
Rating:
Summary: Definitive History -- Insightful Analysis
Review: Runciman gives a comprehensive, panoramic account of the Crusades, from the unlikely success of the First Crusade to the final, inevitable defeat of the Crusading movement. He analyzes the reasons for the success and the causes of the ultimate failure of the Crusades, and therein lies a lesson for modern times. Runciman speaks of the many causes of initial victory and ultimate defeat, and catalogs the grievous injuries to all concerned resulting from the Crusades. His analysis is sobering, and some of it is not inapplicable to the current state of affairs in the Middle East. The Crusader States were looked on by the native Moslems as interlopers to be driven into the sea. That final victory was achieved, but at what cost? Given the fiat accompli of the First Crusade, and the centuries of existence of the Crusader States, couldn't they have achieved a modus vivendi which, if not completely satisfactory to either side, at least allowed the parties to live in harmony without doing further mischief to each other. If all sides of the current conflict in the Middle East would read this book, it might expedite the peace process.
Rating:
Summary: The Classic Account
Review: Runciman's is the classic account of the Crusades, and one of the finest works of history published in this century. Those reviews who found it dry must have been weaned on Mitchener, Rutherfurd or other such pap, and those who regret the omission of consideration of crackpot conspiracy theories within (some of which had not been written when H.C. was published) will, of course, remain unsatified.
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