Editing Steven Runciman (section)

===Work as a historian===
After receiving a large inheritance from his grandfather, Runciman resigned his fellowship in 1938 and began travelling widely. Thus, for much of his life he was an independent scholar, living on private means.<ref name="lrb2016"/> He went on to be a press attaché at the British Legation in the Bulgarian capital, [[Sofia]], in 1940 and at the British Embassy in [[Cairo]] in 1941. From 1942 to 1945 he was Professor of Byzantine Art and History<ref name="lrb2016"/> at [[Istanbul University]], in [[Turkey]], where he began the research on the Crusades which would lead to his best known work, the ''History of the Crusades'' (three volumes appearing in 1951, 1952 and 1954). From 1945 to 1947 he was a representative in Athens of the [[British Council]].<ref name=":0"/><ref name="lrb2016"/>

Most of Runciman's historical works deal with Byzantium and her medieval neighbours between Sicily and Syria; one exception is ''The White Rajahs'', published in 1960, which tells the story of [[Raj of Sarawak|Sarawak]], an independent state founded on the northern coast of [[Borneo]] in 1841 by [[James Brooke]], and ruled by the Brooke family for more than a century.

[[Jonathan Riley-Smith]], one of the leading historians of the Crusades,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Peters |first=Damien |url={{GBurl|3EorDwAAQBAJ|pg=PT66}} |title=The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |year=2017 |isbn=9781351353106 |page=66 }}</ref> denounced Runciman for his perspective on the Crusades.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Crusade Myths |url=http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/tmadden_crusademyths_feb05.asp |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220106013513/http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/tmadden_crusademyths_feb05.asp |archive-date=2022-01-06 |access-date=2016-01-03 |publisher=Ignatius Insight |language=en}}</ref> Riley-Smith had been told by Runciman during an on-camera interview that he [Runciman] considered himself "not a historian, but a writer of literature."{{sfn|Andrea| Holt|2015|p=xxii}}

According to [[Christopher Tyerman]], Professor of the History of the Crusades at [[Hertford College, Oxford]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Hertford College, University of Oxford |title=Professor Christopher J. Tyerman |url=https://www.history.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-christopher-j-tyerman?}}</ref> Runciman created a work that "across the [[English-speaking world|Anglophone world]] continues as a base reference for popular attitudes, evident in print, film, television and on the internet."{{sfn|Andrea|Holt|2015|p=xxiii}}