‘The whole tale is one of faith and folly, courage and greed, hope and disillusion’

Steven Runciman’s triumphant three-volume A History of the Crusades remains an unsurpassed account of the events that changed the world and continue to resonate today. This final volume of the trilogy begins with the glamorous Third Crusade and ends with the ruinous collapse of the crusader states and the degeneration of their ideals, which reached its nadir in the tragic destruction of Byzantium.

‘When historical events are written about with this sort of command, they take on not only the universality of a fairy tale but also a certain moral weight. Runciman writes both seductively and instructively about the dignity and beauty of different religious beliefs and about the difficulties of their co-existence’ Independent

‘There was magic about. Saladin himself was troubled by terrible dreams…’

Steven Runciman’s unrivalled history of the Crusades is a classic of learning and vivid, compelling storytelling, which brilliantly brings to life the personalities, battles, massacres, triumphs and follies of these epochal events. In this second volume of his trilogy Runciman tells the story of the foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the disastrous, bloody Second Crusade and the inexorable rise of the crusaders’ nemesis, Saladin.

‘The pre-eminent historian of the Byzantine Empire and of the Crusades … a surefooted guide who could render the past visible and familiar’ Daily Telegraph

‘He tells his story plain … always pleasurable to read’ Gore Vidal

‘On a February day in the year AD 638 the Caliph Omar entered Jerusalem, riding upon a white camel’

An enthralling work of grand historical narrative, Steven Runciman’s A History of the Crusades overturned the traditional view of the Crusades as a romantic Christian adventure, and instead shifted the focus of the story to the East. With verve and drama, volume one of Runciman’s trilogy tells the story of the First Crusade – from its unlikely beginnings in pilgrimage to the horrors of the siege of Jerusalem and the carving out of new territory on the edge of the eastern Mediterranean.

‘Without question one of the major feats of contemporary historical writing’ The New York Times

‘The historian whose magisterial works transformed our understanding of Byzantium, the medieval church and the crusades’ Guardian