History books, especially those about the period of time before The Enlightenment, are always biased based on popular views and prejudices. Among those controversial events was those of the Crusades - which traces its roots all the way forward to the current Israel/Palatine/Middle East fighting the persists today. This book is an attempt to remove the religious bias that accompanies the study of post-Islamic middle east to provide a geopolitical study of why Europe kept sending people east.
The author attempted to make "a case for the crusades", which I think was a failure. He didn't convince me that the crusades were a good idea, but the author did convince me that other people were convinced. Moreover, he convinced me that his arguments were a much more likely set of arguments than those that are traditionally taught - religious extremism coupled with total anarchy. These traditional arguments I always found hard to believe given the multi-national cooperation of Europe, Byzantine, and both the Latin and Greek churches.
Before reading this book, I had an American high school knowledge of the Crusades, which is to say, very little understanding of what happened and why. So, I can recommend this book as an introductory text on the subject, but I can't attest to its completeness or validity. Still, it was an easy read and quite enjoyable.
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