This three-volume set is an exemplary history, full of the incident and hundreds (thousands) of persons (all carefully indexed) who comprise the events of two and half centuries. Sir Steven is not a "thesis" historian, although he does not hesitate to make final conclusions of great insight and soundness. His strength lies in his meticulous detail and objectivity, recounting the errors and virtues of all the players, on all sides, with great wisdom and impartiality. He shows that the Crusades were, to use his word, an epic fiasco, that set out to secure the safety of Eastern Christendom, and ended up destroying it; yet he also shows how the Crusades were an initiator of the Italian Renaissance, by driving out the humanists and scholars who could not thrive in an Islamic world whose rigid intolerance was amplified by the Crusading movement. Without ever being vitriolic, he spares no one: While the Crusaders were stubborn bigots who refused to learn from past strategic errors, the Moslems were riven by internecine power-contests that nearly sunk them, and the Mongols efficiently, ruthlessely built an empire based on Genghis Khan's organizational brilliance and policy of implacable massacre. Stylistically, the books are a remarkable crossroads of popular appeal, engaging writing and mind-bogglingly comprehensive scholarship, detailed research and narrative account. ( )

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 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. ( )

Clasico, clasiquísimo de la historiagrafía de las Cruzadas, aunque como ya dije cuando lo mencioné en el hilo de libros recién comprados, hoy superado. No se trata de un análisis exhaustivo de las causas, motivaciones, entorno y relaciones que se generaron en torno a las cruzadas, sino más bien una narración historiográfica, en la línea de Gibbon con La Caída de Roma o el más reciente que comentaba de Goldsworthy.

Es decir, el tipo coge la situación inicial y te va contando, con una excelente prosa, cómo se iban gestando los diferentes movimientos que condujeron a la primera cruzada, dedicando atención a sus principales cabezas y a lo que ocurrió después hasta la toma de Jerusalén.

Lo más interesante, dejando a un lado la ausencia de aparato crítico, es la multitud de fuentes que usa, no sólo las de su tiempo en casi todos los idiomas, sino las históricas y muchas veces en el idioma general, lo que le permite pintar un fresco apabullante –sin mucha perspectiva, eso sí.

Como iniciación al tema, de una forma amena y con un clásico no puede haber otro. ( )

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 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. ( )

Incomparable. A work of history so fine it sets a standard for other to be measured against. ( )