Infidels

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Excellent! - Rated
A thoroughly enjoyable read that sheds light on the relation between Islam and Christianity. My recommendation for everyone who reads this book is to do so whilst leaving theological issues and your own religious views out of it. The book looks at Christendom and 'Islamdom'; in other words it is neither for nor against either faith, rather, it is concerned with the institutionalized manifestations of these faiths... manifestations that are all too often overshadowed by political considerations and outright hypocricy.

Disappointing - Rated
The author presents the conflict between Chrisendom and Islam based on 3 historical confrontations - Spain, the Crusades & the Balkans.

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.

Crusades and Jihad - Rated
Starting with an account of the great sea battle of Lepanto between the galleys of Europe and the Turks, the author surveys the whole of the history of conflict with Islam up to the present day. He perceptively put Christendom not Christianity as a participant in the conflict which today ends with a secular West versus Islam.
The author has some Christian family history but little sympathy with the faith. He is a secularist who rightly says the Enlightenment never reached Islam. But his only appeal is then to reason, ever the inadequate refuge of the liberal, for the reform of Islam. He has no concept of a spiritual battle taking place and criticizes those who do. I do though agree that the word crusade should have no part in the evangelistic vocabulary of Christians today.
He regards G W Bush as a sincere Christian who is not a master of communication, hence some faux pas in talking about the response to Islamist threats.
I also enjoyed the book for filling me in on the history of Spain and Islam as well as conflict in the Balkans.

Infidels: The conflict between Christendom and Islam 638-200 - Rated
Every day that I watch the horrors in the Middle East on TV, I'm glad I've read this marvellous book. The author has researched the whole history covering well over a thousand years, and it contains a massive amount of knowledge, much of it buried in more than sixty pages of notes at the end of the book.

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.

Not worth the Paper! - Rated
In his introduction, Mr. Wheatcroft asserts that this area of history is not his speciality. Every succeeding page served to confirm that assertion.

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!