History of the Crusades III (Penguin Modern Classics)

The third volume of Steven Runciman's classic, hugely influential trilogy on the history of the Crusades

'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 Crusadesremains an unsurpassed account of the events that changed the world andcontinue to resonate today. This final volume of the trilogy beginswith the glamorous Third Crusade and ends with the ruinous collapse ofthe crusader states and the degeneration of their ideals, which reachedits nadir in the tragic destruction of Byzantium.

'Whenhistorical events are written about with this sort of command, they takeon not only the universality of a fairy tale but also a certain moralweight. Runciman writes both seductively and instructively about thedignity and beauty of different religious beliefs and about thedifficulties of their co-existence' Independent