The presentation of the history of each episode is weak (Misha Glenny's excellent book on the Balkans is a must for anyone interested in this sphere), the narrative unconvincing and the pace ponderous.

One also wonders how a book with such a title can barely touch on the massacre of the Armenians by the Turks during WW2.

His Story isn't intended so much for the specialist as for the ordinary reader. It reads like a dream, like a good novel. Nevertheless I quickly got sucked into the fine detail at the back of the book. History, literature, geography, word-origins, clothes, food, and lots of examples of work of art and cartoons back up this fast-paced text.

Wheatcroft's book undermines the assumptions we all make too easily. He shows how in the West - what he calls Christendom - we have always looked fearfully at the Moslems. His idea is that this fear was recorded by monks and scholars early on, and has persisted to the present. The same is largely true of the Moslems looking to the west. But what is not written down are the long periods when they lived together side by side.

The author refuses to take sides. If one group does something terrible, he reminds you that their opponents did something just as terrible. Initially, this was disconcerting, but soon it was clear that this was his way of saying 'look again'. By the time I had finished the last chapters ( about the present situation), I was reading my newspaper with a much more critical eye.

This book shows that everything we are experiencing today has precedents, in one way or another. A lot of people are going to hate it, because it seriously questions their deep rooted prejudices. But foe anyone who's prepared to be open minded, it's an outstanding book, not to be missed.

His chronolgy is not only flawed but highly selective. For any historian to view Lepanto without reference to the defence of Malta in 1565 is indicative on a flawed comprehension of the Christian/Muslim dynamic in the 15-18th centuries.

From there it went downhill, the Cordoba martyrs are zealots, self-sacrificing fanatics, the complete antithesis of their tolerant and benevolent Islamic masters. I really began to think that I was reading promo material for the "Magnificent 19" because the author's reasoning was as skewed as that used by the supporters of Al-Quaeda & terrorism.

I bought this book, expecting an objective review as indicated by the title. What I received, does not warrant shelfspace & has been consigned to the recycling bin!

Stick to teaching English, Mr. Wheatcroft!