A History of the Crusades I

Sir Steven Runciman (1903-2000) was one of the greatest British historians. He drastically recast how we think about both the Crusades and the history of Byzantium. His major works include <i>The Sicilian Vespers </i>(1958) <i>The Great Church in Captivity </i>(1968) <i>Byzantine Style and Civilization </i>(1975) and <i>Mistra </i>(1980). <p><b>The first volume of Steven Runciman's classic hugely influential trilogy on the history of the Crusades</b><br><br>'On a February day in the year AD 638 the Caliph Omar entered Jerusalem riding upon a white camel'<br><br>An enthralling work of grand historical narrative Steven Runciman's <i>A History of the Crusades</i> 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.<br><br>'Without question one of the major feats of contemporary historical writing' <i>The New York Times</i><br><br>'The historian whose magisterial works transformed our understanding of Byzantium the medieval church and the crusades' <i>Guardian</i></p> <p><b>The first volume of Steven Runciman's classic hugely influential trilogy on the history of the Crusades</b><br><br>'On a February day in the year AD 638 the Caliph Omar entered Jerusalem riding upon a white camel'<br><br>An enthralling work of grand historical narrative Steven Runciman's <i>A History of the Crusades</i> 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.<br><br>'Without question one of the major feats of contemporary historical writing' <i>The New York Times</i><br><br>'The historian whose magisterial works transformed our understanding of Byzantium the medieval church and the crusades' <i>Guardian</i></p>