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A History of the Crusades: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100-1187 (A History of the Crusades, Vol 2) (Volume 2)
by Steven Runciman
Product Group: Book
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (1987-12-25)
ISBN: 0521347718
EAN: 9780521347716
Dewey Decimal #: 909.07
Binding/Media: Paperback - 538 pages
SKU: 06020
Condition: Used: Good
Comments: Pages clean with some scuff marks on edge, some creases and edge wear on cover.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product 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. 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 defy straightforward analysis, but they must be understood if we are to understand the establishment of the Crusader states and the later causes of the recovery of Islam ... The main theme in this volume is warfare ... I have followed the example of the old chroniclers, who knew their business; for war was the background to life in Outremer and the hazards of the battlefield often decided its destiny.'
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Customer Reviews
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The Best Book in Runciman's Trilogy
Rating  (5)
Date: 2009-10-27
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
Like the first book in the set, this book combines scholarly accuracy and detail with a narrative skill even popular-level history writers would envy. This book manages to surpass even Runciman's stellar history of the First Crusade. It has the same level of scholarship and readability as the first volume, but the period covered in this volume is even more interesting than the first, making this the pinnacle of Runciman's trilogy. Beginning with the expansion of the Latin Kingdom following the First Crusade, Runciman takes us through the golden years of the kingdom, the beginnings of the great military orders, Saladin's rise to power, and the complex interplay of the factions surrounding the crusader states.
What makes this volume better than the rest is a combination of the great amount of detail in this volume (compared to the less-detailed third volume, which covers much more in the same amount of space), the enthusiasm he shows for the subject (which is lessened in other volumes which involve the crusaders beating up on his beloved Byzantines), and the very interesting characters who lived in this period. From the great statesman Baldwin and the heroic Leper King to the great Byzantine Emperor Manuel to the Old Man of the Mountain and the enigmatic Reynald de Chatillon, this period was filled with characters it would be difficult to write a boring book about. Runciman shows he is up to the task of bringing together a coherent account of the motives and actions of all of these characters, and he does so in a way that makes it fairly easy to keep track of who is who and what is going on.
This may be the single greatest volume written about the crusades, though it only covers one crusade (the second, which did very little and gets only one chapter) and is primarily focused on the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Principality of Antioch. It is both accurate and readable. It is, in fact, more than readable. It is something quite rare in the world of academic history books; it is fun. Runciman has a tendency to indirectly point out humerus ironies, mock the characters in the story, and make subtle sarcastic remarks. It takes a little while to catch on to his dry humor, but it really makes the book a delight to read. Anyone who can combine witty, engaging writing with the level of scholarship present in this book deserves the recognition Runciman has received as the writer of the greatest account of the crusades ever produced.
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A History of the Crusades, Volume II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100-1187
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-08-28
1 out of 1 customers found this reveiw helpful
All three volumes of this historical work are written extremely well. They are very enjoyable to read. Sir Runciman's observations and personal conclusions are well reasoned and seem unprejudiced. These volumes (3)are among the most enjoyable works I have read on the history of the crusades, I recommend them to anyone interested in a realistic but balanced look at the Crusades and their contributions to Western Civilization as well as their problematic execution. Pax Tecum Fr Bill
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The very best on the subject
Rating (5)
Date: 2007-03-16
2 out of 2 customers found this reveiw helpful
Runciman was a genius. A brilliant writer in English, whose grand ambitions never lead him astray from the most meticulous separation of fact from speculation, he was also an extraordinary polyglot. He read not only the Latin, Old French and Greek among the contemporary accounts of the Crusades, but the Arabic, Syriac, Persian, Hebrew, Gergian, Ethiopic, Slavonic, Norse and Mongolian as well, not to mention modern secondary works in many more languages still. If he shows any favoritism at all among the warring factions of the Crusades, then it is towards the Byzantine Greeks, although what looks like favoritism to me may only be due to my own ignorance. Even if I'm right about his favoring the Greeks, Runciman is still by far the most impartial historian of the Crusades known to me. He's certainly the only one who took the trouble and had the talent to read all the sources in the original. (Most people who've read widely in more than one language can probably appreciate how much tends to be lost in translation, not to mention how much is never translated at all.) As if his reading weren't enough, he often walked through the cities and over the battlefields which he describes in his works, in order to discover things which no one had yet written.
Runciman makes sweeping judgements and expresses strong opinions, although these are often decently hidden between the lines of his polite Cambridge prose. But all of his judgements and opinions have the support of the most solid scholarship.
I recommend the three-volume 'History of the Crusades'. The book 'The First Crusade' is an abridgement of the first volume, without footnotes or appendices or bibliography. In addition to the the three-volume history, I also have a copy of the abridgement 'The First Crusade', but it's the illustrated hardcover edition, ISBN 0521232554. I got it just for the pictures, many in color. The three volumes of the 'History of the Crusades' have a few black-and-white illustrations, and the paperback edition of 'The First Crusade' has no illustrations.
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Not happy
Rating  (1)
Date: 2006-02-24
1 out of 8 customers found this reveiw helpful
I ordered this book twice, especially because the picture shows the book with a blue cover which is the Cambridge Press edition.The books I received were not from Canbridge Press and did not have the Appendix III which is the genealogy. These books came from paperbackshop in England. I feel that the genealogy is a very important part of this book and should always be included.
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Gripping Tale of the Rise & Fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
Rating (5)
Date: 2003-01-02
5 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
This second volume of Steven Runciman's three-volume history of the crusades is a masterful piece of scholarship and historiography. If all historians read Runciman's History of the Crusades and learned of his style, there would be fewer complaints from readers that histories are dry, crusty stories. Indeed, Runciman artfully weaves several elements such as the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the zenith of Byzantium and the ascension of the Turkish power in the persons of Zenghi, Nur ed-din and Saladin powerful, gripping narrative that brings the rogues and heroes of the crusades to life. Runciman skillfully explains the court intrigues behind the scenes in the crusader kingdom and fiefdoms, the delicate balance of power between Byzantium and the Frankish east and the Turks and the rivalry between Turkish clans and leaders. This second novel concerns the rise and fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, its place in the three-volume set is critical in that Runciman articulates a few of his his theories concerning the lessons learned from the crusades, and they are difficult to refute. Runciman of particular relevance to contemporary foreign policy in that region, Runciman notices that the politically fractious Turks discovered a unifying force in the presence of the alien Franks, which became a focal point in the development of a pan-Turkish/Muslin identity and a nexus for action. Also, Runciman argues that first-generation crusaders acclimated to local political and cultural customs and could have co-existed to some degree with the Turks and Muslims had it not been for the brash crusaders that arrived after the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and viewed the situation in more stark, black-and-white terms. Runciman also holds that the Latins could have made more effective use of Byzantium in formulating policy for the east rather than competing with it in some instances and altogether ignoring it in others. Finally, while Runciman assumes that the triumph of Islam in the crusades was an inevitability (mostly due to the policies chosen by the petty nobles that arrived in the east after the first crusade to aggrandize rather than consolidate crusader power) there were shrewd, far-sighted individuals and more of these distinguished men could have stemmed the tide a bit longer. In other words, qualities such as leadership and "the vision thing" are timeless.
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