A History of the Crusades IIRunciman's great Crusades trilogy reissued in Penguin Modern Classics 'The whole tale is one of faith and folly, courage and greed, hope and delusion' The triumph of the First Crusade transformed the eastern Mediterranean, creating a series of European ruled states along the coast and in Armenia. But the region's Muslim rulers were far from defeated, and the major cities of inland Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere now rallied to expel the colonisers. How