A History of the Crusades: Volume 3, The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades [Hardcover]

Steven Runciman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1954 | Series: History of the Crusades (Book 3)

Sir Steven Runciman's three volume A History of the Crusades, one of the great classics of English historical writing, is now being reissued. In this final volume, Runciman examines the revival of the Frankish kingdom at 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. He includes a chapter on architecture and the arts, and an epilogue on the last manifestations of the Crusading spirit.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'I do not know when, in recent years, I have read a book which so enlarged my knowledge of and interest in a period of history ... It sets before us one of the formidable moral and romantic epics of our time, with scholarship and imagination worthy of it.' The Times Literary Supplement

'The three volumes ring with battle trumpets and drums, glitter with the splendor of noble parades, and are replete with true stories of bravery and cowardliness, rash daring and wily intrigue ... To the specialist (Runicman) offers a wealth of new interpretations ... To the layman, he tenders romance and suspense at nearly every page.' The Yale Review

' ... the best scholarly survey of the subject by a single author. It will always remain the first considerable work of its kind in the English language.' The English Historical Review

'One of the grand historical monuments of the twentieth century ... Written with imagination and based on immense scholarship, (the volumes) are filled with true stories of rash daring and wily intrigue as the flower of Western knighthood assaults the infidel East for God, gold and glory.' Washington Post Book World

Book Description

Sir Steven Runciman's, A History of the Crusades (volume 3), examines the revival of the Frankish kingdom at the time of the Third Crusade until its collapse a century later. This is one of the great classics of English historical writing and a great survey of the time.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 542 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; First Edition edition (January 1, 1954)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521061636
• ISBN-13: 978-0521061636
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 5.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,588,742 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Definitive History -- Insightful Analysis, June 30, 2000

By 

George R Dekle "Bob Dekle" (Lake City, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A History of the Crusades: Volume 3, The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades (Hardcover)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The very best on the subject, March 16, 2007

By 

S. Bollinger "Ahtsamattawitchoo" (Earth) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A History of the Crusades, Vol. III: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades (Volume 3) (Paperback)

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars Comprehensive history of the crusades, July 1, 2011

By 

Alex - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A History of the Crusades, Vol. III: The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades (Volume 3) (Paperback)

This series of three books provides a comprehensive and detailed history of the crusades in Outremer. It is very readable, and although there have been recent re-visualisations of this era, these books still remain the seminal secondary source for this history.

The format is perhaps a little old, but these books are invaluable for anyone who is interested in the history of the crusades.