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Outlandish Knight: The Byzantine Life of Steven Runciman
Spectator Books of the Year 2016
'An extraordinary book ... exceptionally fascinating, always readable and penetratingly intelligent' David Abulafia
'As rich, funny and teemingly peopled as Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time ... Dinshaw writes with wit and elegance, and the most elegiac passages of Outlandish Knight evoke a lost society London and way of life' Ben Judah, Financial Times
'This dazzling young writer is a mine of fascinating, memorable and totally useless information... I have been riveted by this book from start to finish, and leave the reader with one word of advice. Watch Minoo Dinshaw. He will go far' John Julius Norwich, Sunday Telegraph
The biography of one of the greatest British historians - but also of a uniquely strange and various man
In his enormously long life, Steven Runciman managed not just to be a great historian of the Crusades and Byzantium, but Grand Orator of the Orthodox Church, a member of the Order of Whirling Dervishes, Greek Astronomer Royal and Laird of Eigg. His friendships, curiosities and intrigues entangled him in a huge array of different artistic movements, civil wars, Cold War betrayals and, above all, the rediscovery of the history of the Eastern Mediterranean. He was as happy living in a remote part of the Inner Hebrides as in the heart of Istanbul. He was obsessed with historical truth, but also with tarot, second sight, ghosts and the uncanny.
Outlandish Knight is a dazzling debut by a writer who has prodigious gifts, but who also has had the ability to spot one of the great biographical subjects. This is an extremely funny book about a man who attracted the strangest experiences, but also a very serious one. It is about the rigours of a life spent in the distant past, but also about the turbulent world of the twentieth century, where so much that Runciman studied and cherished would be destroyed.
'An extraordinary book ... exceptionally fascinating, always readable and penetratingly intelligent' David Abulafia
'As rich, funny and teemingly peopled as Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time ... Dinshaw writes with wit and elegance, and the most elegiac passages of Outlandish Knight evoke a lost society London and way of life' Ben Judah, Financial Times
'This dazzling young writer is a mine of fascinating, memorable and totally useless information... I have been riveted by this book from start to finish, and leave the reader with one word of advice. Watch Minoo Dinshaw. He will go far' John Julius Norwich, Sunday Telegraph
The biography of one of the greatest British historians - but also of a uniquely strange and various man
In his enormously long life, Steven Runciman managed not just to be a great historian of the Crusades and Byzantium, but Grand Orator of the Orthodox Church, a member of the Order of Whirling Dervishes, Greek Astronomer Royal and Laird of Eigg. His friendships, curiosities and intrigues entangled him in a huge array of different artistic movements, civil wars, Cold War betrayals and, above all, the rediscovery of the history of the Eastern Mediterranean. He was as happy living in a remote part of the Inner Hebrides as in the heart of Istanbul. He was obsessed with historical truth, but also with tarot, second sight, ghosts and the uncanny.
Outlandish Knight is a dazzling debut by a writer who has prodigious gifts, but who also has had the ability to spot one of the great biographical subjects. This is an extremely funny book about a man who attracted the strangest experiences, but also a very serious one. It is about the rigours of a life spent in the distant past, but also about the turbulent world of the twentieth century, where so much that Runciman studied and cherished would be destroyed.
784 pages, Hardcover
First published September 29, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
December 3, 2021
A good style - a superb arrangement of anecdotes and asides, full of brilliant little portraits, and gossip as moral inquiry, all that. But also weirdly pretentious and boring.
November 22, 2017
Historian Steven Runciman’s life spanned most of the twentieth century: 1903 to 2000. Though born in Northumberland, he considered himself Scottish and was for a time the Laird of Eigg, an island his father, Walter, purchased in 1925. This biography often reads like a who’s-who of the upper classes. Walter led the Board of Education in Prime Minister Asquith’s cabinet, and young Steven was school chums with the PM’s son, Anthony “Puffin” Asquith. At Eton Eric Blair (aka George Orwell) was his closest pal; at Cambridge he was photographed by Cecil Beaton – as in that splendid cover image. His brother married novelist Rosamond Lehmann. He was friends with E.F. Benson, Edith Wharton and the Queen Mother. A young Patrick Leigh Fermor wandered into Bulgaria while Runciman was there for the 1934 International Byzantine Congress, and Fermor and Freya Stark turn up frequently thereafter. Our hero also spent time in China, Japan, Greece, Turkey, Egypt and Borneo. My favorite odd interlude in this wide-ranging, adventurous life was a time in Hollywood advising George Cukor on Empress Theodora (to be played by Ava Gardner).
Dinshaw draws a fine distinction between his subject’s professional and private selves. When talking about the published historian and thinker, he uses “Runciman”; when talking about the closeted homosexual and his relationships with family and friends, it’s “Steven”. This confused me to start with, but quickly became second nature. Occasionally these public and private personas are contrasted directly: “Runciman was a great romantic historian; but in his personal affairs Steven had come to be more admiring of that epithet ‘realistic’ than of any height of romance.” Indeed, Steven once confessed he had never been in love. At the shortlist event on Saturday, Dinshaw summed him up as “an old-fashioned, courtly queer.”
Dinshaw doesn’t shy away from his subject’s less flattering traits like vanity, envy and mischievousness. He also gives a good sense of Runciman’s writing style for those readers who may never read his history books – such as a three-volume history of the Crusades and a work on Sicilian prehistory – for themselves:
Chapter titles are mainly taken from relevant tarot cards (for instance, Chapter 22, “The Hanged Man,” primarily concerns Steven’s homosexuality), which also feature on the book’s endpapers. The text is also partitioned by two sets of glossy black-and-white photographs. The book’s scope and the years of research that went into it cannot fail to impress. I never warmed to Steven as much as I wanted to, but that is likely due to a lack of engagement: regrettably, I had to skim much of the book to make the deadline. However, I will not be at all surprised if the official judges choose to honor this imposing work of scholarship.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Dinshaw draws a fine distinction between his subject’s professional and private selves. When talking about the published historian and thinker, he uses “Runciman”; when talking about the closeted homosexual and his relationships with family and friends, it’s “Steven”. This confused me to start with, but quickly became second nature. Occasionally these public and private personas are contrasted directly: “Runciman was a great romantic historian; but in his personal affairs Steven had come to be more admiring of that epithet ‘realistic’ than of any height of romance.” Indeed, Steven once confessed he had never been in love. At the shortlist event on Saturday, Dinshaw summed him up as “an old-fashioned, courtly queer.”
Dinshaw doesn’t shy away from his subject’s less flattering traits like vanity, envy and mischievousness. He also gives a good sense of Runciman’s writing style for those readers who may never read his history books – such as a three-volume history of the Crusades and a work on Sicilian prehistory – for themselves:
Runciman does owe some of his lucid style and sardonic humour to Gibbon.
The opening of Romanus established the practice of resonantly gnomic first lines in Runciman’s work: clear in style, epic in resonance, cynical in import and without immediate application to the particulars of the subject.
Chapter titles are mainly taken from relevant tarot cards (for instance, Chapter 22, “The Hanged Man,” primarily concerns Steven’s homosexuality), which also feature on the book’s endpapers. The text is also partitioned by two sets of glossy black-and-white photographs. The book’s scope and the years of research that went into it cannot fail to impress. I never warmed to Steven as much as I wanted to, but that is likely due to a lack of engagement: regrettably, I had to skim much of the book to make the deadline. However, I will not be at all surprised if the official judges choose to honor this imposing work of scholarship.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
July 8, 2022
I'll update later since I am only at Chapter 5 but I want to get this out of my system right now.
Here's a supremely unsatisfactory passage which illustrates the problem I am having with this tome (p. 37)
This is a long passage and it shows a great deal of research. But does it tell us anything really useful about Steven? I think not.
Now I checked the index and both Longfords are never again mentioned again in the book (and the more celebrated Frank does not even make the index) . Why bother the reader with them, then? This just one example, every page is littered with details dredged up about people who are utterly peripheral to the life of Runciman himself - at best.
(The vignette about ducking is great but it could be a footnote at best.)
Mr. Dinshaw has excavated prodigious amount of material but it would really been much better if he, or his editor, had exercised some discretion and pruned it a bit.
And there is a missed opportunity here. Why was it exactly that Runciman had difficulty forgiving the Dardanelles? The whole WWI was a never-ending debacle and orgy of useless death. Why did he single out the Dardanelles for special consternation? Did he lose someone particularly close to him there? Did he have beef with Churchill's strategic thinking? I feel there was a chance to get a real window into Runciman's personality here but we got useless chit-chat about the Longfords instead.
Here's a supremely unsatisfactory passage which illustrates the problem I am having with this tome (p. 37)
Steven's near-contemporary Lord Longford (Edward Pakenham, elder brother of the more celebrated Frank) had succeeded to his earldom in 1915 upon the death of his father at Gallipoli. The late Earl's last words were said to have been 'Don't bother ducking, the mean don't like it and it doesn't do any good.' But his heir ducked on principle, becoming the first Etonian cadet to resign from the OTC and achieving heroic stature among the school'd liberals. Steven, thinking back on that immediate post-war atmosphere in later interviews, maintained his distance from all extremes. He considered young Longford `a silly boy'; but, though he had known Churchill in his father's Liberal circles since early childhood, he always thought it `difficult to forgive him over the Dardanelles'.
This is a long passage and it shows a great deal of research. But does it tell us anything really useful about Steven? I think not.
Now I checked the index and both Longfords are never again mentioned again in the book (and the more celebrated Frank does not even make the index) . Why bother the reader with them, then? This just one example, every page is littered with details dredged up about people who are utterly peripheral to the life of Runciman himself - at best.
(The vignette about ducking is great but it could be a footnote at best.)
Mr. Dinshaw has excavated prodigious amount of material but it would really been much better if he, or his editor, had exercised some discretion and pruned it a bit.
And there is a missed opportunity here. Why was it exactly that Runciman had difficulty forgiving the Dardanelles? The whole WWI was a never-ending debacle and orgy of useless death. Why did he single out the Dardanelles for special consternation? Did he lose someone particularly close to him there? Did he have beef with Churchill's strategic thinking? I feel there was a chance to get a real window into Runciman's personality here but we got useless chit-chat about the Longfords instead.
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September 1, 2017Steven Runciman was a leading figure in bringing Byzantine history to general attention in the West; he also lived a long and eventful life taking in almost the whole 20th century, moving amongst the famous and the titled the whole time. But perhaps most importantly for this biography’s readability, he was in person a waspish queen of the old school, and quite often a right prick. Whether Dinshaw is generally aware of this never quite becomes clear; he will occasionally admit that Runciman was, for instance, “grotesquely susceptible to flattery”, but more often he appears content simply to record the amount of rope involved, and let the hanging take care of itself. And yet, he can’t help an obvious affection for the ridiculous man, and by the end of this nor could I. Runciman was a snob, casually anti-semitic, intermittently racist and sexist, and even managed to be vaguely homophobic despite himself being thoroughly gay (he apparently still regarded it as sinful, and was very down on 'exquisites' such as Stephen Tennant despite rouging his own cheeks – between which and his behaviour towards younger male guests, at once prone to pouncing and quick to retreat, I was reminded at times of Uncle Monty). Mostly, these were the diseases of his imperial, pre-Wolfenden generation. But even beyond that, he was a stirrer, gleefully accelerating the collapse of his brother’s marriage to Rosamond Lehmann, and that’s a vice I find far harder to forgive based on historical context, being endemic throughout and beyond human history. And yet, and yet…you sense it would have been worth the gamble of meeting him. His prejudices were mild enough often to be in abeyance; even the stirring could sometimes be in a friend’s behalf rather than a foe’s despite. And oh, the stories he could tell! He knew everyone from Sir Edward Grey, “the most elegiac warmonger in Europe” in 1914, through to people still active in politics and academia today. Taking in along the way such friends and acquaintances as George Orwell, Edith Wharton (until they fell out over a bad-tempered peke), EF Benson and the Queen Mum (to whom he warmed markedly once she was no longer mere Duchess of York). True, not all of them liked him, or vice versa; the Bloomsburies thought him something of a bloodless automaton, and in so far as he was definitely by temperament as well as fact a Cambridge rather than an Oxford fellow, the comparison doesn’t necessarily redound to my alma mater’s credit. Patrick Leigh Fermor was the charming but unreliable pisshead and shagger subordinate whom he fired, and whom he would ever after tease by taking any opportunity in his books for dissing Fermor’s favourite peninsula. In any case, he preferred the “compromise between plainness and porphyry” of Freya Stark’s writing to Fermor's “excitable magniloquence”.
This is, in other words, exactly the sort of biography for which I’m a sucker. Yeah, I’ve read a few lives of monarchs and such lately, but as a rule they're not quite my speed; I prefer the figures lurking on the margin of the scene. I've read a life of Talleyrand but never Napoleon, for instance. And most of all I enjoy the lives of odd figures in the more gilded periods of British history, eccentric and ideally at least a little queer, the people who knew anyone who was anyone without ever quite being famous themselves. They can die young and doomed, or else live on as Steven did, “relicts of a past age…left-overs from more gracious days”, messengers into the nearly now. The author bio on this author bio is as minimal as can be, but one gets the sneaking suspicion that maybe Dinshaw identifies with Runciman just as Runciman did with certain of the antique chroniclers he described in his histories. Certainly he shares Steven’s wise tendency never to omit an interesting character on such minor grounds as their irrelevance to the story’s larger currents. And so, especially but not exclusively in the footnotes, we meet the likes of “the American beauty Eva Palmer, a ‘bisexual biscuit heiress’ with an amateur interest in reviving the Oracle of Delphi”, or the literally larger-than-life Captain ‘Poppa’ Fairweather: “When White Waltham insisted that taxi pilots used maps, he used one of Roman Britain.” We may not strictly need to know that the family who would inspire Waugh's Flytes nabbed Steven's governess, but we are the richer for it. Another writer might have confined themselves to telling us how the Runciman parents were among the big beasts of the old Liberal party in its last days of power; Dinshaw tells us that too, but also that Steven’s mother was one of the first women to smoke in public, and caused a riot in Roumania by having a cigar at the theatre. And yet, it always holds together as something more than just a connection of anecdotes (even if I can’t guarantee the same will be true of this review). We hear about dripping wax on Monty’s bald spot during the Miracle of the Holy Fire – but also that Runciman was a firm believer in that miracle. Runciman playing at laird of Eigg, inviting Guy Burgess* or the Ealing director Robert Hamer to stay, seems a lark, until the wonderfully sad conclusion sees the island sold, never to be seen again – for it was Steven's “lifelong principle that it is unwise to return to a place where one has been perfectly happy”.
Of course, Runciman did write books too. And I’ve never read any, so can’t confirm or deny anything Dinshaw says about them, but he gives the impression of being honest about their strengths and weaknesses. He notes a tendency to present inference and hunch as fact; there’s a lot of what might by a later generation be called headcanon presented as history in Runciman’s work. Or, to use Dinshaw’s rather better way of putting it: “Runciman learnt to frolic in the evidential void with abandon, originality and plausibility”. There’s a particularly good chapter on the Crusades trilogy, with close reading of its style and effects, and an enlightening comparison to contemporary series such as Waugh's Sword of Honour or the early volumes of Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time. If you object that one is fact and the others fiction, well, Dinshaw also offers a fabulously arch aside about that. My other favourite line on the work: "Runciman does owe something of his lucid style and sardonic humour to Gibbon. He was however determined never to admit this, much preferring to proclaim his literary descent from Beatrix Potter”.
It’s a nicely organised book, too: the overall structure is chronological, but Runciman’s books, and certain themes, get chapters of their own, none of which feel misplaced. Another nice touch: most of the chapter titles come from the tarot's major arcana (with a few interlopers sprinkled in, some of which hide better than others). Though the occult side of Steven’s life was one area where I would have liked a little more detail; we hear about his magic ring, or the time at Eton when he allied with the young Eric Blair to kill a fellow pupil through witchcraft, but elsewhere it can rather fade into the background at times. Still, at least there’s room to detail the young Steven’s cult of Kokland, “a neo-pagan religion based around poultry” which he formed with his most game sibling. All of the brood, incidentally, later to have accurate premonitions of their grandfather’s death. And that story seems verifiable unlike, for instance, another of Runciman’s school stories about the young Blair, in which the future author of 1984 allegedly stuck up for Aldous Huxley, future author of Brave New World, when as teacher the latter proved incapable of keeping a bullying classroom in order. That one is at least a maybe, if one nobody else seemed to recall, as against Runciman’s story about meeting China's last (official) Emperor, which Dinshaw exposes as pretty much total fantasy. Ah well. At least Steven really did first encounter Cecil Beaton when the latter inadvertently set a passer-by’s hat aflame. And yes, much as Byron kept a bear in Trinity because dogs were forbidden, so Steven really took an antique dulcitone there on the grounds it wasn’t quite a prohibited piano.
What else? Oh, so much else. The Warden of New College whose underclothes were used in Operation Mincemeat. The only Communist Party spokesman in the Lords. The keen amateur actor of noble birth who displayed “the firtatious lightness of a hippopotamus with a headache. His actions on stage remind one of a dyspeptic heron stalking frogs in a marsh.” The fact that in the early 20th century, aristocratic British families might still call a daughter Lesbia. A couple of brief appearances by the great Lord Dunsany. Giro the terrier, "the only German diplomat in Hitler’s employ to be afforded a solemn gravestone in London; it is testament to the British love of dogs that the spot survived undesecrated through the Blitz.”
The fact that Steven very nearly managed to shag his way through the whole alphabet – including X twice! - but never managed a Q, because even though the offer would always have been there, he couldn't quite face Quentin Crisp. It’s a ridiculous, gilded confection of a life, and gods bless Dinshaw for catching so fine a trace of it. Though I admit to some puzzlement as to why American spellings have been used in such an utterly British tale.
*Burgess looms large here for a while, his combination of magnetism and poor hygiene recalling a figure from the other side of the Revolution, Rasputin.
This is, in other words, exactly the sort of biography for which I’m a sucker. Yeah, I’ve read a few lives of monarchs and such lately, but as a rule they're not quite my speed; I prefer the figures lurking on the margin of the scene. I've read a life of Talleyrand but never Napoleon, for instance. And most of all I enjoy the lives of odd figures in the more gilded periods of British history, eccentric and ideally at least a little queer, the people who knew anyone who was anyone without ever quite being famous themselves. They can die young and doomed, or else live on as Steven did, “relicts of a past age…left-overs from more gracious days”, messengers into the nearly now. The author bio on this author bio is as minimal as can be, but one gets the sneaking suspicion that maybe Dinshaw identifies with Runciman just as Runciman did with certain of the antique chroniclers he described in his histories. Certainly he shares Steven’s wise tendency never to omit an interesting character on such minor grounds as their irrelevance to the story’s larger currents. And so, especially but not exclusively in the footnotes, we meet the likes of “the American beauty Eva Palmer, a ‘bisexual biscuit heiress’ with an amateur interest in reviving the Oracle of Delphi”, or the literally larger-than-life Captain ‘Poppa’ Fairweather: “When White Waltham insisted that taxi pilots used maps, he used one of Roman Britain.” We may not strictly need to know that the family who would inspire Waugh's Flytes nabbed Steven's governess, but we are the richer for it. Another writer might have confined themselves to telling us how the Runciman parents were among the big beasts of the old Liberal party in its last days of power; Dinshaw tells us that too, but also that Steven’s mother was one of the first women to smoke in public, and caused a riot in Roumania by having a cigar at the theatre. And yet, it always holds together as something more than just a connection of anecdotes (even if I can’t guarantee the same will be true of this review). We hear about dripping wax on Monty’s bald spot during the Miracle of the Holy Fire – but also that Runciman was a firm believer in that miracle. Runciman playing at laird of Eigg, inviting Guy Burgess* or the Ealing director Robert Hamer to stay, seems a lark, until the wonderfully sad conclusion sees the island sold, never to be seen again – for it was Steven's “lifelong principle that it is unwise to return to a place where one has been perfectly happy”.
Of course, Runciman did write books too. And I’ve never read any, so can’t confirm or deny anything Dinshaw says about them, but he gives the impression of being honest about their strengths and weaknesses. He notes a tendency to present inference and hunch as fact; there’s a lot of what might by a later generation be called headcanon presented as history in Runciman’s work. Or, to use Dinshaw’s rather better way of putting it: “Runciman learnt to frolic in the evidential void with abandon, originality and plausibility”. There’s a particularly good chapter on the Crusades trilogy, with close reading of its style and effects, and an enlightening comparison to contemporary series such as Waugh's Sword of Honour or the early volumes of Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time. If you object that one is fact and the others fiction, well, Dinshaw also offers a fabulously arch aside about that. My other favourite line on the work: "Runciman does owe something of his lucid style and sardonic humour to Gibbon. He was however determined never to admit this, much preferring to proclaim his literary descent from Beatrix Potter”.
It’s a nicely organised book, too: the overall structure is chronological, but Runciman’s books, and certain themes, get chapters of their own, none of which feel misplaced. Another nice touch: most of the chapter titles come from the tarot's major arcana (with a few interlopers sprinkled in, some of which hide better than others). Though the occult side of Steven’s life was one area where I would have liked a little more detail; we hear about his magic ring, or the time at Eton when he allied with the young Eric Blair to kill a fellow pupil through witchcraft, but elsewhere it can rather fade into the background at times. Still, at least there’s room to detail the young Steven’s cult of Kokland, “a neo-pagan religion based around poultry” which he formed with his most game sibling. All of the brood, incidentally, later to have accurate premonitions of their grandfather’s death. And that story seems verifiable unlike, for instance, another of Runciman’s school stories about the young Blair, in which the future author of 1984 allegedly stuck up for Aldous Huxley, future author of Brave New World, when as teacher the latter proved incapable of keeping a bullying classroom in order. That one is at least a maybe, if one nobody else seemed to recall, as against Runciman’s story about meeting China's last (official) Emperor, which Dinshaw exposes as pretty much total fantasy. Ah well. At least Steven really did first encounter Cecil Beaton when the latter inadvertently set a passer-by’s hat aflame. And yes, much as Byron kept a bear in Trinity because dogs were forbidden, so Steven really took an antique dulcitone there on the grounds it wasn’t quite a prohibited piano.
What else? Oh, so much else. The Warden of New College whose underclothes were used in Operation Mincemeat. The only Communist Party spokesman in the Lords. The keen amateur actor of noble birth who displayed “the firtatious lightness of a hippopotamus with a headache. His actions on stage remind one of a dyspeptic heron stalking frogs in a marsh.” The fact that in the early 20th century, aristocratic British families might still call a daughter Lesbia. A couple of brief appearances by the great Lord Dunsany. Giro the terrier, "the only German diplomat in Hitler’s employ to be afforded a solemn gravestone in London; it is testament to the British love of dogs that the spot survived undesecrated through the Blitz.”
The fact that Steven very nearly managed to shag his way through the whole alphabet – including X twice! - but never managed a Q, because even though the offer would always have been there, he couldn't quite face Quentin Crisp. It’s a ridiculous, gilded confection of a life, and gods bless Dinshaw for catching so fine a trace of it. Though I admit to some puzzlement as to why American spellings have been used in such an utterly British tale.
*Burgess looms large here for a while, his combination of magnetism and poor hygiene recalling a figure from the other side of the Revolution, Rasputin.
October 25, 2025
Reached page 160. There's a bewildering number of names to remember. And it's a struggle. Maybe because I'm a member of what Runciman would call the 'lower orders'. But to be fair, even he struggled at times. During a trip to Romania (or Roumania), he writes how hard it was 'to remember who was now married to whom'. Join the club, Steven. I'm going to persevere. But so far, so dry. Actually, "dry" isn't the right word. Dinshaw's style is too gossipy to label it that. But it's pretty dense. And a little overwhelming. Maybe it'll become easier when the names become more recognisable. Anyway, time to press on...
p225. Dinshaw's erudition is clear. But maybe he shows it off a bit too much. I'm finding it a little over-written, maybe even over-researched. Do we really need a mini bio on every person and parrot Runciman ever came into contact with? It clogs up the narrative and hides the main subject. I don't agree with some of the other reviews that make a similar point, but think that Runciman disappears altogether. But in some chapters he's certainly struggling to get a look in.
p.275. I'm starting to enjoy it a bit more, but Minoo, you don't have to mention every person who came into Runciman's orbit! It's a biography, not Who's Who & Who Was Who. I've read somewhere that Dinshaw was 24 when he started the book and 28 when he finished. It is a formidable achievement and I've added an extra star. I just hope the precocious flourishes in his writing will dissipate as Dinshaw matures.
p.395. I can feel a break coming on. I've another book I can race through. Unlike this one, which continues to be quite dense. It's a brilliantly written and researched book, but doesn't sparkle. You can see how it might appeal to a certain demographic, but it's not for me.
p.435. 'The canvas is wide...It is also crowded with characters; but a historical canvas is always necessarily crowded, and readers who are afraid of crowds should keep to the better-ordered lanes of fiction.' Steven Runciman, but it could just as easily be Minoo Dinshaw.
p.491. I'm into my third week with this. Slow going. I'm going to get to the end, but it's a bit of a slog. Dinshaw's use of language dazzles, but in doing so blinds you and stops you seeing (and enjoying) the story. I know it's an English thing to use a phrase like 'Too clever by half', but I am English, so, too clever by half.
p.573. Last push tomorrow. Dinshaw seems to glide over Runciman's anti-semitism. It's mentioned, but in passing (or en passant, as Dinshaw would say). I know it was hardwired into that preWar aristocratic milieu (even for parvenus like Runciman). But it's still deserving of greater analysis and condemnation.
And finished. A real slog. Too much prior knowledge is required. By the end I didn't really like the book or the person (Runciman, not Dinshaw; too snobby, too artificial, too affected). If I was ranking the book by how much I enjoyed it I would give it one star. But that would be unfair. To write a book of this quality and learning when you're in your 20s is nothing short of remarkable. It's just not for me. For those of you thinking of giving it a go, I say this. Read Runciman's works first. And arm yourself with a good dictionary and a copy of Who's Who and Who Was Who. By the end, personally, I couldn't care less. But many will feel differently.
p225. Dinshaw's erudition is clear. But maybe he shows it off a bit too much. I'm finding it a little over-written, maybe even over-researched. Do we really need a mini bio on every person and parrot Runciman ever came into contact with? It clogs up the narrative and hides the main subject. I don't agree with some of the other reviews that make a similar point, but think that Runciman disappears altogether. But in some chapters he's certainly struggling to get a look in.
p.275. I'm starting to enjoy it a bit more, but Minoo, you don't have to mention every person who came into Runciman's orbit! It's a biography, not Who's Who & Who Was Who. I've read somewhere that Dinshaw was 24 when he started the book and 28 when he finished. It is a formidable achievement and I've added an extra star. I just hope the precocious flourishes in his writing will dissipate as Dinshaw matures.
p.395. I can feel a break coming on. I've another book I can race through. Unlike this one, which continues to be quite dense. It's a brilliantly written and researched book, but doesn't sparkle. You can see how it might appeal to a certain demographic, but it's not for me.
p.435. 'The canvas is wide...It is also crowded with characters; but a historical canvas is always necessarily crowded, and readers who are afraid of crowds should keep to the better-ordered lanes of fiction.' Steven Runciman, but it could just as easily be Minoo Dinshaw.
p.491. I'm into my third week with this. Slow going. I'm going to get to the end, but it's a bit of a slog. Dinshaw's use of language dazzles, but in doing so blinds you and stops you seeing (and enjoying) the story. I know it's an English thing to use a phrase like 'Too clever by half', but I am English, so, too clever by half.
p.573. Last push tomorrow. Dinshaw seems to glide over Runciman's anti-semitism. It's mentioned, but in passing (or en passant, as Dinshaw would say). I know it was hardwired into that preWar aristocratic milieu (even for parvenus like Runciman). But it's still deserving of greater analysis and condemnation.
And finished. A real slog. Too much prior knowledge is required. By the end I didn't really like the book or the person (Runciman, not Dinshaw; too snobby, too artificial, too affected). If I was ranking the book by how much I enjoyed it I would give it one star. But that would be unfair. To write a book of this quality and learning when you're in your 20s is nothing short of remarkable. It's just not for me. For those of you thinking of giving it a go, I say this. Read Runciman's works first. And arm yourself with a good dictionary and a copy of Who's Who and Who Was Who. By the end, personally, I couldn't care less. But many will feel differently.
February 20, 2017
Most Byzantinists don't receive or merit a 700-page biography aimed at the wider public. But then Steven Runciman was not most Byzantinists. He only held a formal academic role for two fairly brief intervals, once as a fellow of Trinity College Cambridge from 1927-1938 and once as professor of history at Istanbul University during the Second World War. The titles he collected were more exotic: in his time, he was the Astrologer Royal to the Greek Monarchy, the Grand Orator to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Laird of Eigg in the Inner Hebrides. One enthusiastic encomium claimed that 'he played piano duets with the last Emperor of China, told tarot cards for King Fuad of Egypt, narrowly missed being blown up by the Germans in the Pera Palace hotel in Istanbul and twice hit the jackpot on slot machines in Las Vegas'. Dinshaw's capable biography shows that these stories are not all true (the bit about piano duets with the Chinese Emperor was a fantasy spread by Runciman himself).
Above all, Runciman was well-connected. His best friend at prep school was Anthony 'Puffin' Asquith, a future film director the son of the then-sitting Prime Minister. At Eton, Runciman was taught by Aldous Huxley and friendly with two boys who would also go on to become famous novelists: Anthony Powell and Eric Blair (aka George Orwell). As a young man, he caught the last wave of Bloomsbury and the first wave of the Bright Young Things, although he remained somewhat aloof from both. It was at this time that he posed several times for Cecil Beaton, including the striking shot with a parakeet on the cover of the book. His students at Trinity included the numismatist and popular historian Michael Grant and the future administrator par excellance Noel Anan. And then there was his favourite and most (in)famous pupil, Guy Burgess, who shared Runciman's Etonian background and his homosexuality. As the director of the British Council in Athens after the War, he had found himself in the unhappy position of having to fire his friend Patrick Leigh Fermor, on the not unreasonable grounds that the latter did no work whatsoever. Runciman didn't die until 2000, so he lived long enough to know and mentor several generations of academics: one of his proteges, Neil MacGregor, was director of the British Museum until 2015.
Of course, not all of Runciman's friends were from intellectual or academic circles. He also had a penchant for royalty. He adored Marie of Romania, visited is Cambridge friend Prince Chula in Thailand, entertained Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark (mother of Prince Philip). Perhaps the greatest social coup of his life was becoming the first man to entertain a woman in the dining room of the Athenaeum, when he invited the Queen Mother there for what was to become an annual lunch party.
So, there is plenty of material here to justify a lengthy biography. Happily, Dinshaw is more than up to the task of transforming all this material into a splendid book. He is an erudite and often witty guide to Runciman's life, sympathetic but never uncritical of his fallible protagonist.
No great book is without flaws, and this is no exception. Sometimes it feels rather over-confected, although this is entirely in keeping with the proclivities of Runciman himself. I'm not sure the conceit of structuring the chapters around different Tarot Cards always works, and by the looks of it, neither is the author, as he occasionally abandons it. The thematic rather than diachronic structure of the later chapters does make it occasionally difficult to keep the chronology straight. But these are minor complaints about a splendid book.
Above all, Runciman was well-connected. His best friend at prep school was Anthony 'Puffin' Asquith, a future film director the son of the then-sitting Prime Minister. At Eton, Runciman was taught by Aldous Huxley and friendly with two boys who would also go on to become famous novelists: Anthony Powell and Eric Blair (aka George Orwell). As a young man, he caught the last wave of Bloomsbury and the first wave of the Bright Young Things, although he remained somewhat aloof from both. It was at this time that he posed several times for Cecil Beaton, including the striking shot with a parakeet on the cover of the book. His students at Trinity included the numismatist and popular historian Michael Grant and the future administrator par excellance Noel Anan. And then there was his favourite and most (in)famous pupil, Guy Burgess, who shared Runciman's Etonian background and his homosexuality. As the director of the British Council in Athens after the War, he had found himself in the unhappy position of having to fire his friend Patrick Leigh Fermor, on the not unreasonable grounds that the latter did no work whatsoever. Runciman didn't die until 2000, so he lived long enough to know and mentor several generations of academics: one of his proteges, Neil MacGregor, was director of the British Museum until 2015.
Of course, not all of Runciman's friends were from intellectual or academic circles. He also had a penchant for royalty. He adored Marie of Romania, visited is Cambridge friend Prince Chula in Thailand, entertained Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark (mother of Prince Philip). Perhaps the greatest social coup of his life was becoming the first man to entertain a woman in the dining room of the Athenaeum, when he invited the Queen Mother there for what was to become an annual lunch party.
So, there is plenty of material here to justify a lengthy biography. Happily, Dinshaw is more than up to the task of transforming all this material into a splendid book. He is an erudite and often witty guide to Runciman's life, sympathetic but never uncritical of his fallible protagonist.
No great book is without flaws, and this is no exception. Sometimes it feels rather over-confected, although this is entirely in keeping with the proclivities of Runciman himself. I'm not sure the conceit of structuring the chapters around different Tarot Cards always works, and by the looks of it, neither is the author, as he occasionally abandons it. The thematic rather than diachronic structure of the later chapters does make it occasionally difficult to keep the chronology straight. But these are minor complaints about a splendid book.
September 15, 2021
A joy. It's true Minoo Dinshaw gives vignettes of everyone Steven Runciman glanced at sideways; the book might have been framed 'the world of Runciman'. In the chapters on the works, it's an intellectual biography.
For me, fascinated by history-writing, by fictionalising history, and by historians' fictional strategies, Dinshaw on the method and style of the great Crusades trilogy, the Constantinople tragedy and the Sicilian Vespers, was worth the price. For pages at a time you wouldn't know Runciman wasn't writing historical fiction. He thought history belongs among the arts -- certainly not the sciences -- and Dinshaw turns an arts-criticism eye on him. The book fits beautifully in my 'writing history-writing hf' file.
For those with other interests, Runciman's life was various, and he met or knew semi-intimately or slept with a legion of names. From the Bloomsbury set, the new Bloomsburys, the Cambridge spies, eastward travellers, the halls of medieval academia, and yes the royalty he had a pash for. Writers great and now unheard-of (so many of the latter). Gay history? There is much talk of the 'homintern', and Runciman wanders the world in homosexual circles until the narrative has to note, 'so-and-so, who was heterosexual...' As it should have to.
I bet Dinshaw can be over-detailed in sections for most readers, where they are least invested in phases of Runciman's life and learning. At the same time you get glorious detail on aspects you have picked him up for.
It did shed light for me on the huge swing in Crusades studies, from Runciman's inter-war and post-war works that not only have novelistic values but are committed to a pluralism of cultures and a criticism of Western ventures east; to an era differently grim, where after 9/11 historians have a sharp eye out for jihad and reject Runciman's trashing of Crusader knights. Seen in the context of the century, it seems even more important to me not to stop reading Runciman. We too have our agendas and our current-event influences, and should read widely in otherwise-inflected interpretations.
This book gave me such a sense as I haven't had before of the distance between the early 20th century and the early 21st. Other reviews have commented, Runciman's young years seem as romantic and glamorous (he preferred 'glamorous' to 'romantic' but liked these words) a place and time as the obscure spots of eastern or Mediterranean medieval history he alighted on and made popular.
I did see with despair Runciman's rare privilege, that allowed him to wallow in dead languages and half-forgotten societies from the cradle. Few of us could ever have been Steven Runciman.
The title is perfect, and the cover photo also spot-on.
For me, fascinated by history-writing, by fictionalising history, and by historians' fictional strategies, Dinshaw on the method and style of the great Crusades trilogy, the Constantinople tragedy and the Sicilian Vespers, was worth the price. For pages at a time you wouldn't know Runciman wasn't writing historical fiction. He thought history belongs among the arts -- certainly not the sciences -- and Dinshaw turns an arts-criticism eye on him. The book fits beautifully in my 'writing history-writing hf' file.
For those with other interests, Runciman's life was various, and he met or knew semi-intimately or slept with a legion of names. From the Bloomsbury set, the new Bloomsburys, the Cambridge spies, eastward travellers, the halls of medieval academia, and yes the royalty he had a pash for. Writers great and now unheard-of (so many of the latter). Gay history? There is much talk of the 'homintern', and Runciman wanders the world in homosexual circles until the narrative has to note, 'so-and-so, who was heterosexual...' As it should have to.
I bet Dinshaw can be over-detailed in sections for most readers, where they are least invested in phases of Runciman's life and learning. At the same time you get glorious detail on aspects you have picked him up for.
It did shed light for me on the huge swing in Crusades studies, from Runciman's inter-war and post-war works that not only have novelistic values but are committed to a pluralism of cultures and a criticism of Western ventures east; to an era differently grim, where after 9/11 historians have a sharp eye out for jihad and reject Runciman's trashing of Crusader knights. Seen in the context of the century, it seems even more important to me not to stop reading Runciman. We too have our agendas and our current-event influences, and should read widely in otherwise-inflected interpretations.
This book gave me such a sense as I haven't had before of the distance between the early 20th century and the early 21st. Other reviews have commented, Runciman's young years seem as romantic and glamorous (he preferred 'glamorous' to 'romantic' but liked these words) a place and time as the obscure spots of eastern or Mediterranean medieval history he alighted on and made popular.
I did see with despair Runciman's rare privilege, that allowed him to wallow in dead languages and half-forgotten societies from the cradle. Few of us could ever have been Steven Runciman.
The title is perfect, and the cover photo also spot-on.
November 27, 2017
Being a series of short reviews of the Young Writer of the Year Award shortlisted titles. Spoilers ahead.
The title for Minoo Dinshaw’s enormous (700-page) biography of Steven Runciman, a noted Byzantine historian of the mid-twentieth century, comes from a Scottish ballad. There is no parallel between the events of the ballad (which comes in many variants but usually involves a woman running off with a knight who reveals himself to be a serial murderer; the woman defeats him through a combination of wit, strength, and sometimes magic) and Runciman’s own life, but Dinshaw admits that he chose it more for what it says about his subject’s taste. Born in Northumberland, Runciman would evince a deep love for and identification with Scotland and the Borders for the rest of his life, and would eventually, through a complicated series of events, become Laird of Eigg. (He went so far as to proclaim himself Scottish, although neither of his parents were.)
Dinshaw’s work is, to put it mildly, comprehensive. He has obviously been through every scrap of the relevant primary sources, including Runciman’s own unpublished memoirs, and his regard for his subject shines through every sentence. In a way, though, this is the book’s downfall. It is, as has been previously mentioned, very long, and although Runciman certainly came into contact with a wide array of interesting people (Eric Blair, Cecil Beaton, Freya Stark, the last Emperor of China, and the Queen Mother, to name but a few), the relevance of his own life is less clear. Dinshaw apparently described Runciman as a “courtly, old-fashioned queer” at the bloggers’ event that the other members of the shadow panel attended; to me, that sentence sums up the difficulty with Outlandish Knight in general, which is that it delineates a society—English, genteel, snobbish, mid-twentieth-century—whose rules are so alien now as to appear almost science fictional. (I told the shadow panel that it’s the same uncanny-valley feeling one often gets when reading Golden Age detective stories; although they mostly avoid explicit sexism and racism, the mores of the characters and the limits of acceptable social behaviour generally seem much more distant and exotic than, say, Dickens or Sterne.)
Dinshaw succeeds most at convincing us of Runciman’s importance, I think, when he emphasises that sense of distance by focusing on the ways in which his subject’s death heralded the end of a whole world. Runciman’s academic interest was in Byzantium, the Eastern and later segment of the Roman Empire, and in late antiquity shading into the medieval period in what is now Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The twentieth century changed these parts of the world drastically, irrevocably, and usually not for the better; one feels it a mercy that Runciman’s death occurred before September 11, 2001, and before he could see what became of the historic homes of the civilisations he had loved. In this sense, Outlandish Knight is a valuable, if melancholy, resource for understanding precisely what has been lost—in terms of approaches to scholarship as well as the business of living—for good and for ill. (Runciman’s sexuality is the one thing he appears never to have discussed with anyone, though his friends seemed aware that he had affairs. It strikes me as a life much like the character Posner’s in Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, who says at the end of the play that he’s “not happy, but I’m not unhappy about it.”)
Still, though. Despite the accolades that adorn the front cover, the writing seemed to me to be perfectly fine, but not outstanding. It is a lot more impressive when you realise that Dinshaw is only twenty-eight now and it took him four years to write, but even that provokes me mainly to be impressed with his self-confidence, not necessarily with an undying prose style. I came away from the biography with very little sense of what Steven Runciman might actually have been like: what might have made him laugh, or light up with interest; how he might have gone about making friends or flirting or tackling his work day. For a book this long, that’s a bit alarming.
The Young Writer of the Year Award winner is announced on 7 December. For more commentary, see the rest of the Shadow Panel: Rebecca, Clare, Dane and Annabel. This review was originally published on my blog at Elle Thinks. Outlandish Knight is published by Allen Lane, and is now available in paperback, so you don't have to murder your wrists.
The title for Minoo Dinshaw’s enormous (700-page) biography of Steven Runciman, a noted Byzantine historian of the mid-twentieth century, comes from a Scottish ballad. There is no parallel between the events of the ballad (which comes in many variants but usually involves a woman running off with a knight who reveals himself to be a serial murderer; the woman defeats him through a combination of wit, strength, and sometimes magic) and Runciman’s own life, but Dinshaw admits that he chose it more for what it says about his subject’s taste. Born in Northumberland, Runciman would evince a deep love for and identification with Scotland and the Borders for the rest of his life, and would eventually, through a complicated series of events, become Laird of Eigg. (He went so far as to proclaim himself Scottish, although neither of his parents were.)
Dinshaw’s work is, to put it mildly, comprehensive. He has obviously been through every scrap of the relevant primary sources, including Runciman’s own unpublished memoirs, and his regard for his subject shines through every sentence. In a way, though, this is the book’s downfall. It is, as has been previously mentioned, very long, and although Runciman certainly came into contact with a wide array of interesting people (Eric Blair, Cecil Beaton, Freya Stark, the last Emperor of China, and the Queen Mother, to name but a few), the relevance of his own life is less clear. Dinshaw apparently described Runciman as a “courtly, old-fashioned queer” at the bloggers’ event that the other members of the shadow panel attended; to me, that sentence sums up the difficulty with Outlandish Knight in general, which is that it delineates a society—English, genteel, snobbish, mid-twentieth-century—whose rules are so alien now as to appear almost science fictional. (I told the shadow panel that it’s the same uncanny-valley feeling one often gets when reading Golden Age detective stories; although they mostly avoid explicit sexism and racism, the mores of the characters and the limits of acceptable social behaviour generally seem much more distant and exotic than, say, Dickens or Sterne.)
Dinshaw succeeds most at convincing us of Runciman’s importance, I think, when he emphasises that sense of distance by focusing on the ways in which his subject’s death heralded the end of a whole world. Runciman’s academic interest was in Byzantium, the Eastern and later segment of the Roman Empire, and in late antiquity shading into the medieval period in what is now Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The twentieth century changed these parts of the world drastically, irrevocably, and usually not for the better; one feels it a mercy that Runciman’s death occurred before September 11, 2001, and before he could see what became of the historic homes of the civilisations he had loved. In this sense, Outlandish Knight is a valuable, if melancholy, resource for understanding precisely what has been lost—in terms of approaches to scholarship as well as the business of living—for good and for ill. (Runciman’s sexuality is the one thing he appears never to have discussed with anyone, though his friends seemed aware that he had affairs. It strikes me as a life much like the character Posner’s in Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, who says at the end of the play that he’s “not happy, but I’m not unhappy about it.”)
Still, though. Despite the accolades that adorn the front cover, the writing seemed to me to be perfectly fine, but not outstanding. It is a lot more impressive when you realise that Dinshaw is only twenty-eight now and it took him four years to write, but even that provokes me mainly to be impressed with his self-confidence, not necessarily with an undying prose style. I came away from the biography with very little sense of what Steven Runciman might actually have been like: what might have made him laugh, or light up with interest; how he might have gone about making friends or flirting or tackling his work day. For a book this long, that’s a bit alarming.
The Young Writer of the Year Award winner is announced on 7 December. For more commentary, see the rest of the Shadow Panel: Rebecca, Clare, Dane and Annabel. This review was originally published on my blog at Elle Thinks. Outlandish Knight is published by Allen Lane, and is now available in paperback, so you don't have to murder your wrists.
July 20, 2016
Engrossing study of Runciman (whose books had me falling in love with history) based largely on his unpublished memoirs and letters. Where these conflict Dinshaw - a debutant - is a safe pair of hands, guiding us toward the most likely truth. Especially illuminating are descriptions of Steven's youth and his relationship with his father, the great Liberal politician Walter.
September 7, 2021
I have reached p.591 and I decided to stop reading. The author made sure that by now I have lost all interest in Runciman I ever had.
In long, long, convoluted sentences with a new-word-every-day vocabulary, Dinshaw introduces us to every (every!) person Runciman ever met from birth, with their sexual preferences (foremost) and complete curriculum vitae, no matter if these persons played any role in his life or were just casual acquaintances.
The only person that remains completely elusive is Runciman himself. After 591 pages I can't say that I know him, like someone I met. And shouldn't that be the main goal of a biography?
In long, long, convoluted sentences with a new-word-every-day vocabulary, Dinshaw introduces us to every (every!) person Runciman ever met from birth, with their sexual preferences (foremost) and complete curriculum vitae, no matter if these persons played any role in his life or were just casual acquaintances.
The only person that remains completely elusive is Runciman himself. After 591 pages I can't say that I know him, like someone I met. And shouldn't that be the main goal of a biography?
October 5, 2025
A wonderful biography - how often does a historian warrant a biography? I know this is exactly the sort of biography Hugh Trevor Roper (or Lord Dacre as he became) would have adored but he didn't get one and he is forgotten and unread while Runciman for all his faults is not and still worth reading. I can not praise this wonderful book enough - although their lives crossed only briefly the book is worth buying for the picture Eric Blair, George Orwell to be, with Steven Runciman and other friends disporting themselves in bathing costumes in most languid fashion.
I didn't review this book at the time I read it because of COVID but I adored it - I can't promise that you will enjoy it, Runciman's was a very English life and if you have the appetite and patience for an account of the kind of person that sounds like a character out of - well any of those pre WWII English authors - Grand Orator of the Orthodox Church, a member of the Order of Whirling Dervishes, Greek Astronomer Royal and Laird of Eigg - how can such a man fail to be not simply interesting but fascinating.
I highly recommend also reading the following reviews:
Review from The London Review of Books:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n...
Review from the UK Guardian: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n...
but there are many others, I recommend these because they are not behind paywalls.
I didn't review this book at the time I read it because of COVID but I adored it - I can't promise that you will enjoy it, Runciman's was a very English life and if you have the appetite and patience for an account of the kind of person that sounds like a character out of - well any of those pre WWII English authors - Grand Orator of the Orthodox Church, a member of the Order of Whirling Dervishes, Greek Astronomer Royal and Laird of Eigg - how can such a man fail to be not simply interesting but fascinating.
I highly recommend also reading the following reviews:
Review from The London Review of Books:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n...
Review from the UK Guardian: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n...
but there are many others, I recommend these because they are not behind paywalls.
June 15, 2024
It’s hard to imagine a historian warrants a biography yet Steven Runciman was no ordinary historian, and he deserves this excellent and quite special documentary of his life, work and times. Runciman upbringing as part of a significant business and political family; his adventures and brilliance at university and then his exploits working, researching and writing around the world are well covered. His time in Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey; the development of his masterpieces especially on the Crusades; his huge network of friends are examined in detail. The author has undertaken a remarkable amount of research (with the help of Runciman’s family) and produced a massive first work(640 pages). Yet, it is so readable. The prose is crisp; the humour extensive and the cadence is remarkable. Although vaguely chronological, he dives deeply into particular themes include the historian’s sexuality; his unusual service during wartime; his family relationships and his professional jealousies. But other chapters dive very deeply into to reviewing and analysing each of the subject’s major works. This very considered construct combined with such crisp writing (and much gossip about so many key players in politics, literature, the arts, royalty and so on) makes this a wonderful read about an intriguing subject.
March 12, 2019
Very interesting
An interesting biography of a fascinating man. Perhaps too easy to get lost along the vast gallery of people. Still, well worth reading, notably for fans of Steven Runciman's works.
An interesting biography of a fascinating man. Perhaps too easy to get lost along the vast gallery of people. Still, well worth reading, notably for fans of Steven Runciman's works.
January 12, 2020
If you like lots of juicy anecdotes about Bloomsbury, Oxford...
November 23, 2017
Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of this book for free to review as part of my position on the Young Writer of the Year Award shadow panel. Click here to find out more about that.
Well, I mean, where do I start. There’s a lot to take in from this book, but I guess the best place to start is to explain that this is a biography of a man called Steven Runciman, a historian and author who was one of the foremost experts on the Byzantine Empire. And the Byzantine Empire, as every good schoolboy knows, “was the continuation of the Roman Empire in the East during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, which had been founded as Byzantium). It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.” Yes, I did just get that from Wikipedia.
As you can imagine, this isn’t necessarily the kind of book that I’d usually read. It was incredibly well-written and thoroughly researched, and while I did enjoy it as a whole, I struggled to think of a single person that I’d recommend it to. There are so many books to read and such little time, and seeing as most people have never heard of Steven Runciman, I’m not sure why you’d take the time to read it. It does a great job of preserving the old boys’ club vibe of Britain in the early 20th century, and I’m sure it’ll ultimately have at least some historical value, but for fun? Eh.
On the plus side, Runciman did live an interesting life, and he was even friends with a bunch of people whose names you’d probably recognise. People like George Orwell and the Queen Mother, for example. But it is a little strange to read a biography when you haven’t heard of the person but you’ve heard of many of his contemporaries. The result is almost a book about someone who was famous for being famous, if you can even call it fame. So he’s basically the Paris Hilton of the field of Byzantine history.
Despite all of this, I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t enjoy this book, because I did. I’m pretty glad that I read it and I’m equally glad that I finished it. It was certainly more enjoyable to me than, say, Homer’s Odyssey, but it did kind of feel similar in that I was reading it so that I could say that I’ve read it, rather than because I was super keen to get stuck in.
There’s also the fact that a huge chunk of this book is made up from the notes at the end. That might seem off-putting at first, because it adds a huge chunk to the book and makes it difficult to hold it, especially if you’re carrying it around on public transport or trying to read it in bed. Perhaps an electronic version would have worked better, but then I don’t read e-books and so I doubt I would have ever picked it up. An audio book, then.
Actually, I think there’s so much detail here that an electronic copy really would work better, because it would allow the author to link to other sources and to go into extra detail on some of the different people that Runciman met. The man lived into his nineties and appears to have had a pretty decent archive of diaries and photographs, and he’d also written an unpublished autiobiography. With such a wealth of material, perhaps it’s no surprise that the book was this long – but equally, it could probably have been even longer.
Overall, then, I found it pretty easy to rate this book, but I still struggle to think of a single person I’d recommend it to. Unless you’re an existing fan of Steven Runciman, if such a thing exists, or unless you’re studying either Runciman or Byzantine history, I’m just not sure why you’d want it. And like I said, this has nothing to do with the quality of the writing or the research. It’s genuinely very well done. I just can’t really think who it would appeal to. I feel as though Dinshaw wrote this because it was a personal passion project rather than for any mainstream recognition. And you know what? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Well, I mean, where do I start. There’s a lot to take in from this book, but I guess the best place to start is to explain that this is a biography of a man called Steven Runciman, a historian and author who was one of the foremost experts on the Byzantine Empire. And the Byzantine Empire, as every good schoolboy knows, “was the continuation of the Roman Empire in the East during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul, which had been founded as Byzantium). It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.” Yes, I did just get that from Wikipedia.
As you can imagine, this isn’t necessarily the kind of book that I’d usually read. It was incredibly well-written and thoroughly researched, and while I did enjoy it as a whole, I struggled to think of a single person that I’d recommend it to. There are so many books to read and such little time, and seeing as most people have never heard of Steven Runciman, I’m not sure why you’d take the time to read it. It does a great job of preserving the old boys’ club vibe of Britain in the early 20th century, and I’m sure it’ll ultimately have at least some historical value, but for fun? Eh.
On the plus side, Runciman did live an interesting life, and he was even friends with a bunch of people whose names you’d probably recognise. People like George Orwell and the Queen Mother, for example. But it is a little strange to read a biography when you haven’t heard of the person but you’ve heard of many of his contemporaries. The result is almost a book about someone who was famous for being famous, if you can even call it fame. So he’s basically the Paris Hilton of the field of Byzantine history.
Despite all of this, I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t enjoy this book, because I did. I’m pretty glad that I read it and I’m equally glad that I finished it. It was certainly more enjoyable to me than, say, Homer’s Odyssey, but it did kind of feel similar in that I was reading it so that I could say that I’ve read it, rather than because I was super keen to get stuck in.
There’s also the fact that a huge chunk of this book is made up from the notes at the end. That might seem off-putting at first, because it adds a huge chunk to the book and makes it difficult to hold it, especially if you’re carrying it around on public transport or trying to read it in bed. Perhaps an electronic version would have worked better, but then I don’t read e-books and so I doubt I would have ever picked it up. An audio book, then.
Actually, I think there’s so much detail here that an electronic copy really would work better, because it would allow the author to link to other sources and to go into extra detail on some of the different people that Runciman met. The man lived into his nineties and appears to have had a pretty decent archive of diaries and photographs, and he’d also written an unpublished autiobiography. With such a wealth of material, perhaps it’s no surprise that the book was this long – but equally, it could probably have been even longer.
Overall, then, I found it pretty easy to rate this book, but I still struggle to think of a single person I’d recommend it to. Unless you’re an existing fan of Steven Runciman, if such a thing exists, or unless you’re studying either Runciman or Byzantine history, I’m just not sure why you’d want it. And like I said, this has nothing to do with the quality of the writing or the research. It’s genuinely very well done. I just can’t really think who it would appeal to. I feel as though Dinshaw wrote this because it was a personal passion project rather than for any mainstream recognition. And you know what? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
June 9, 2022
While this book is an amazing pice of scholarship by its author, I am not a big fan of it, and will not be recommending it to my friends.
I am a well-read American in my late 60s. One reason I did not enjoy this book so much was that in spite of my age an reading, I lacked so much of the background information (that British readers may indeed have) to know most of the people he was talking about (either in Britain or in Europe), as well as regarding many aspects of British life which American readers are unfamiliar with. This gave me the feeling, as a reader, that this book was “far beyond my level.” It felt like WORK every time I picked it up. Every time I put it down for a few days, I dreaded picking it up again. I persisted because our book club had chosen it, and because it was in the bestseller lists in Britain.
A second reason I found the book unwieldy was that the author included far, far too much detail about the most minute things. As one of my editor friends would say, “The book was poorly edited,” (meaning that the author was allowed to leave in far too much detail, and not forced to choose the most important details and keep the book under 350 pages). The reader’s feeling is that Dinshaw has included every single detail of Runciman’s life that the author was able to uncover. I’m sure he did not include every detail; it just FEELS as if he did.
However, I do believe author Minoo Dinshaw wrote the book this way with intention. About three-quarters the way through, in reading about Runciman’s books on the Crusades, Dinshaw explains that Runciman’s books (and letters) were known for including every little snippet of gossip, even obtained from obscure sources, in addition to historical facts. My belief, as a reader, was that Dinshaw strove to give readers that same experience in reading about Runciman’s life.
The book did give me an interest in reading some of his works on the Crusades. I also wondered why I had never heard of him, in America, as a historian. The book did actually give me an answer to that question. Dinshaw (p. 592, British paperback edition) says that at a certain point, there was a “colonial drift” (probably originating in America) of much of Western narrative history. (Examples Dinshaw gives are Edward Said, Eric Hobsbawm, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard J. Evans.) An example Dinshaw gives of something that Runciman wrote is, “As usually happens in a colonizing society, the authorities at the top were benevolent and considerate towards their native subjects. It was the invaders of lesser rank that were contemptuous and arrogant.” I can imagine that Runciman’s viewpoint would today (at least in much of America) be considered as “politically incorrect.” So I imagine that this is probably why I have not heard of him as an American.
I did learn some interesting things in the book in spite of my lack of background for the subject matter. I learned about private school culture. After being shocked by it and having some discussions about it with a British friend, I saw that part of that culture is based on ancient Spartan values. In contrast, in America, we have been brought up to admire Athenian values. I think this contrast explains a lot of the intercultural conflicts that Americans encounter as expats living in Britain.I also learned about having an upper class background could be extremely helpful to people who are recruited either as spies, or for any kind of diplomatic service. There were other numerous small insights about various things which I did find useful.
I am a well-read American in my late 60s. One reason I did not enjoy this book so much was that in spite of my age an reading, I lacked so much of the background information (that British readers may indeed have) to know most of the people he was talking about (either in Britain or in Europe), as well as regarding many aspects of British life which American readers are unfamiliar with. This gave me the feeling, as a reader, that this book was “far beyond my level.” It felt like WORK every time I picked it up. Every time I put it down for a few days, I dreaded picking it up again. I persisted because our book club had chosen it, and because it was in the bestseller lists in Britain.
A second reason I found the book unwieldy was that the author included far, far too much detail about the most minute things. As one of my editor friends would say, “The book was poorly edited,” (meaning that the author was allowed to leave in far too much detail, and not forced to choose the most important details and keep the book under 350 pages). The reader’s feeling is that Dinshaw has included every single detail of Runciman’s life that the author was able to uncover. I’m sure he did not include every detail; it just FEELS as if he did.
However, I do believe author Minoo Dinshaw wrote the book this way with intention. About three-quarters the way through, in reading about Runciman’s books on the Crusades, Dinshaw explains that Runciman’s books (and letters) were known for including every little snippet of gossip, even obtained from obscure sources, in addition to historical facts. My belief, as a reader, was that Dinshaw strove to give readers that same experience in reading about Runciman’s life.
The book did give me an interest in reading some of his works on the Crusades. I also wondered why I had never heard of him, in America, as a historian. The book did actually give me an answer to that question. Dinshaw (p. 592, British paperback edition) says that at a certain point, there was a “colonial drift” (probably originating in America) of much of Western narrative history. (Examples Dinshaw gives are Edward Said, Eric Hobsbawm, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard J. Evans.) An example Dinshaw gives of something that Runciman wrote is, “As usually happens in a colonizing society, the authorities at the top were benevolent and considerate towards their native subjects. It was the invaders of lesser rank that were contemptuous and arrogant.” I can imagine that Runciman’s viewpoint would today (at least in much of America) be considered as “politically incorrect.” So I imagine that this is probably why I have not heard of him as an American.
I did learn some interesting things in the book in spite of my lack of background for the subject matter. I learned about private school culture. After being shocked by it and having some discussions about it with a British friend, I saw that part of that culture is based on ancient Spartan values. In contrast, in America, we have been brought up to admire Athenian values. I think this contrast explains a lot of the intercultural conflicts that Americans encounter as expats living in Britain.I also learned about having an upper class background could be extremely helpful to people who are recruited either as spies, or for any kind of diplomatic service. There were other numerous small insights about various things which I did find useful.
October 6, 2021
initial reviews of this book quoted on the inside covers were full of justifiable high praise- a first book by this author - and its not hard to see why. Minoo Dinshaw is clearly a talent- a bright young thing, writing about bright young things- in this case Steven Runciman, author, traveller and historian of the Crusades who lived a long life punctuated by knowing everyone worth knowing at his level in 'society' and travelling widely in pursuit of a career and his historical writing.
As other credited reviews in the endpapers say this is a deeply researched compendious biography- of a man who was both somewhat guarded and lived a seemingly private and sometimes solitary existence. it is only after 500 pages that Dinshaw dumps the reticence and attempts to sum up the mans inner life in terms of relationships and sex. There was never an official partner or marriage- Runciman lived the pre-wolfenden report existence of a gay man, careful at home; less so abroad and opportunist perhaps. Indeed, in some ways apart from his career and writing Runciman seems a distinctly unpromising subject trundling along with perambulations around the world but not really making a significant mark. Yet the stylish writing and deep empathy that Dinshaw manages makes it all strangely compelling. A completely different world for this reader at least. Increasingly in publishing we are getting these stories of relatively privileged usually upper class men doing their thing and recording their world- hence Simon Heffer is producing editions of over a 1000 pages of the Chips Cannon diaries (previously heavily abridged) in three huge projected volumes. Dinshaw does of course emphasise Runcimans talent as a writer of narrative history (another thing trying to make a comeback-if it ever went away? with the likes of Dan Jones et al) and follows him assiduously as he travels to far off places. One finds oneself reading two books-one about Runciman and one hidden in the subtext about the sort of writer that Dinshaw may develop into. This remains his first and only book. Another is surely due soon.A word about the cover which is strikingly done with a brilliant balance of colour and a faux monastic pose from Runciman. Dinshaw is on the back- a photo of a very bright young man and obviously a Runciman groupie. The writing is sublime; deeply crafted and both thoughtful and discursive. An achievement indeed.
June 19, 2018
If I were going to review this I'd call my review 'Waiting for Widmerpool.' Most of the book reads like a ghostly version of A Dance to the Music of Time.
Runciman's history books were a godsend to medieval students wading through the often turgid prose of his peers. The inevitable adjustments time brings to historical writing may have made 'The Crusades' seem less defintive than they once did but you're more likely to become interested in the subject reading all three volumes and go on to refine your history than you are to read some of the more approved successors.
Dinshaw is all the things everyone else says, although at times he's in danger of swamping the reader with the quantity of information which almost seems an end in itself. Long sentences packed with names trace connections between people of little further relevance to the story, leading away from the subject and into lengthy footnotes. Not that there's anything wrong with detail or footnotes but at times I struggled to care or see the relevance to an understanding of Runciman.
There seems to have been no Widmerpool in Steven's life. I did wonder if Dinshaw let his subject of lightly.
Runciman's history books were a godsend to medieval students wading through the often turgid prose of his peers. The inevitable adjustments time brings to historical writing may have made 'The Crusades' seem less defintive than they once did but you're more likely to become interested in the subject reading all three volumes and go on to refine your history than you are to read some of the more approved successors.
Dinshaw is all the things everyone else says, although at times he's in danger of swamping the reader with the quantity of information which almost seems an end in itself. Long sentences packed with names trace connections between people of little further relevance to the story, leading away from the subject and into lengthy footnotes. Not that there's anything wrong with detail or footnotes but at times I struggled to care or see the relevance to an understanding of Runciman.
There seems to have been no Widmerpool in Steven's life. I did wonder if Dinshaw let his subject of lightly.
Read
October 21, 2025Not sure how to rate this one, in part because I read it in two chunks significantly divided from each other in time and in part due to the book itself.
It goes into too much detail about seemingly every meeting Runciman ever had with another human being, and it can be difficult to keep your eye on the forest for the trees. Dinshaw clearly loves his subject. His delight both in Runciman and (Runciman-like) in the gossip of Runciman's social worlds helps the book but also tempts him into some undisciplined indulgence when it comes to writing something for the general reader. On the other hand, it remains eminently readable and enjoyable despite this—the detail is excessive but I somehow never felt bogged down by it. In addition, the combination of serious engagement with his works alongside deep attention to his life and relationships works well (biographies can lean into only one of those depending on the competencies or interest of the biographer, but Dinshaw can do both). The prose is good too.
It goes into too much detail about seemingly every meeting Runciman ever had with another human being, and it can be difficult to keep your eye on the forest for the trees. Dinshaw clearly loves his subject. His delight both in Runciman and (Runciman-like) in the gossip of Runciman's social worlds helps the book but also tempts him into some undisciplined indulgence when it comes to writing something for the general reader. On the other hand, it remains eminently readable and enjoyable despite this—the detail is excessive but I somehow never felt bogged down by it. In addition, the combination of serious engagement with his works alongside deep attention to his life and relationships works well (biographies can lean into only one of those depending on the competencies or interest of the biographer, but Dinshaw can do both). The prose is good too.
June 29, 2021
A lot of bullshit. I've never seen a book more highly praised that deserved so little. It enfuriates me: not the quality of the book, which is not that bad, but the fake praises. The more you read the more it dwells on the sodomitical goings on of the many characters. Mr Runciman was one of the best historians ever in the English language. I'll stick to that knowledge alone, because this book doesn't interest me. Gay books and shit like that don't interest me.
March 27, 2018
This is an extraordinarily detailed biography of one of the 20th century’s most formidable Byzantinist. Thoroughly researched and written in such a dense prose that one may tricked into believing that it was “baroque” style literature by way of Lawrence Durrell. Dinshaw also writes about Runciman’s writing style and sagging legacy with respect to Byzantine (especially Crusader) historiography.
May 5, 2020
You will notice, I think, that it's awfully long. Be not afeared: it's worth the effort. Dinshaw writes with a well-structured wit which seems at least partly acquired from his subject; and I was pleased to be reading about a subject about whose milieu. from Bloomsbury to Waugh, I knew something, but about whom individually I knew nothing whatsoever.
August 10, 2025
Fascinating loooooong (640 pages) biography of Steven and reviews of the books of Runciman. What an amazing life he led. Undoubtedly a child of privilege, who took advantage of his privileges, a bit of a snob with a fascination for royals, but also someone who appreciated cultural diversity, local particularity, and religious ecumenism.
February 6, 2017
Runciman's life provides a beautiful canvas for a long, but accessible, discussion of historiography, the reactive politics of declining British imperialism, decadence and aestheticism, and centrally, the history of the Later Roman Empire.
The book is fascinating, and well written, though the author's phrasing unconstructively complicates otherwise simple things. I agree with other reviewers' conclusions that it is also too long a book for its scope.
The book is fascinating, and well written, though the author's phrasing unconstructively complicates otherwise simple things. I agree with other reviewers' conclusions that it is also too long a book for its scope.
December 26, 2016
This is a fascinating biography of the historian of Byzantium, Steven Runciman, who boasted an address book which included the Queen Mother, Guy Burgess and Gordon Brown. A scion of the Runciman shipping family and the son of Sir Walter Runciman, a Liberal Cabinet Minister. Steven attended Eton and then Cambridge in the 1920's. His academic career spanned seven decades and he wrote accessible, yet seminal histories of Byzantium and the Crusades. This is a beautifully written biography with voluminous and witty footnotes. A pleasure to read.
to-buy
September 21, 2016Recommended Economist
May 1, 2017
Excellent in every way. I consider myself somewhat of a Runciman partisan, and I can find no fault with the exceptional work that Mr. Dinshaw has put into his book. Critical, well researched, and unflinching, he may have well provided me with the standard to judge all future biographic works.
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