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2nd out of 57 books
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30 voters
A History of the Crusades, Vol. II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100-1187
Sir Steven Runciman's three volume A History of the Crusades, one of the great classics of English historical writing, is now being reissued. This volume describes the Frankish states of Outremer from the accession of King Baldwin I to the re-conquest of Jerusalem by Saladin. As Runciman says in his preface, 'The politics of the Moslem world in the early twelfth-century de...more
Paperback, 538 pages
Published
December 25th 1987
by Cambridge University Press
(first published 1951)
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"The Kingdom of Jerusalem" is a far better read than Vol. I "The First Crusade". It is still a substantial amount of information to take in. By now though, thanks to the foundation gained by reading Vol. I the names and places are more familiar. This History is better documented than the previous book and the personalities on all sides are delved into a bit deeper. You gain a better understanding of the establishment of the Kingdom, it's princes petty jealousies and Islam's ultimate triumph over...more
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Although this was published in the 1950s the three volumes are still a very serviceable introduction to the Crusades. This is a top down narrative history mostly taken-up with dynastic struggles between Crusaders and Byzantines, Crusaders and Muslims, Muslims and Byzantines, Muslims and Muslims, Mongols and Muslims, and Crusaders and Crusaders
The success of the first Crusade was quite astonishing. A not very well organised group of competing noblemen managed to march their army via Byzantium int...more
The success of the first Crusade was quite astonishing. A not very well organised group of competing noblemen managed to march their army via Byzantium int...more
-Erudición y entretenimiento no tienen que enfrentarse, al menos no necesariamente-.
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Desde la Primera Cruzada, con una mirada hacia atrás para entender el sustrato del Imperio Romano y su herencia, hasta la caída de San Juan de Acre, con una mirada hacia delante hasta Pio II para entender sus estertores, retrato pormenorizado y cronológico de los hechos, personajes y acontecimientos que construyeron el fenómeno conocido como Las Cruzadas.
¿Quiere saber más del...more
Género. Historia.
Lo que nos cuenta. Desde la Primera Cruzada, con una mirada hacia atrás para entender el sustrato del Imperio Romano y su herencia, hasta la caída de San Juan de Acre, con una mirada hacia delante hasta Pio II para entender sus estertores, retrato pormenorizado y cronológico de los hechos, personajes y acontecimientos que construyeron el fenómeno conocido como Las Cruzadas.
¿Quiere saber más del...more
The middle volume of Professor Runciman's meticulously researched history, dealing with the periods leading up to, and following, the abysmal Second Crusade. A challenging and difficult read, with character names among the Franks, the Byzantines, the Armenians, and the Arabs (among many others) that may seem to repeat and confuse, and many locations largely unknown to the modern western reader. The author's account is not always linear, moving back and forth in time as he recounts details of dif...more
This book was an excellent reference for the factual details of the period. But, unless you are very interested in the topic, it is dry and tough read because it is so full of the facts. I liked the fact that he got into a lot of the details about the political happenings in the arab world during the period. Over and over, you read and the arab disaray allowed the crusader states to stick around as long as they did. But, Runciman takes you through the issues that the arabs were facing during the...more
amazing ... traces the tragi-comic accounts of the second crusades ,aftereffects of the first crusades..an illuminating account of the rise of zengi,Nur ed din and of course the Sultan... salah ed din otherwise known as saladin...the deference to detail , the geopolitical detail in this book as in first is amazing...
Okay, so I mainly read the bits about Balian of Ibelin because I have a serious crush on the guy, but Runciman's history book is the best I've ever read. I don't even like non-fiction all that much, but I've gone back and reread bits of this multiple times.
Aug 10, 2011
Erdem Karaadam
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Compelling read. Must have for those who are into all middle east/ crusades/ politics
A must for anyone who wants to be truly out of date
Put this one back on the shelf. Too depressing.
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A King's Scholar at Eton College, he was an exact contemporary and close friend of George Orwell. While there, they both studied French under Aldous Huxley. In 1921 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge as a history scholar and studied under J.B. Bury, becoming, as Runciman later commented, "his first, and only, student." At first the reclusive Bury tried to brush him off; then, when Runciman ment...more
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