A History Of The Crusades, Vol. II: The Kingdom Of Jerusalem And The Frankish East, 1100-1187 (1987) - Plot & Excerpts
This book was an excellent reference for the factual details of the period. But, unless you are very interested in the topic, it is dry and tough read because it is so full of the facts. I liked the fact that he got into a lot of the details about the political happenings in the arab world during the period. Over and over, you read and the arab disaray allowed the crusader states to stick around as long as they did. But, Runciman takes you through the issues that the arabs were facing during the period. He also does a good job or speculating on the turning points of crusaders' decisions. He does dedicate one chapter to drawing a picture of what life would have been like in the crusader states, but it rather short and a small percentage compared to the rest of the book. The appendexes are full of good information particularly his discussion of the reports of the Battle of Hattin. Consulting his family trees at the end of the book are a MUST for readers, as the families are more confusing than the Imperial Roman ones! One issue that was a little tough for me, was that he did not use enough dates in his work. I would have appreciated more explicit dates, rather than his style of this happened and then this happened.... I enjoyed reading it at the same time as I was reading a historical fiction novel about the period. Reading the two side by side was a good experience because I was able to use the hard facts from Runciman to ground the fictional novel about the same period.
"The Kingdom of Jerusalem" is a far better read than Vol. I "The First Crusade". It is still a substantial amount of information to take in. By now though, thanks to the foundation gained by reading Vol. I the names and places are more familiar. This History is better documented than the previous book and the personalities on all sides are delved into a bit deeper. You gain a better understanding of the establishment of the Kingdom, it's princes petty jealousies and Islam's ultimate triumph over the Franks. Let's just say Hollywood's "Kingdom of Heaven" film took a massive amount of artistic liberty in the telling of this History. This History is an eye-opener and to anybody who wants to gain a better understanding of where the Jihadist mentality came from, crack open this book and give it a go!
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