Disappointing

There is fairly little in this book about the actual faith and history of non-European Christianity. Instead, the author spends countless pages arguing the true but very basic facts that it existed, was important, and was repressed. Much of the book is occupied by largely context-free litanies of cities and regions where Christianity was once very important but now is no more. The only exception is a rambling conclusion seeking to tie Islamic practices and texts to Eastern Christian tradition which, while mildly interesting, was as lacking in elucidating detail as the rest of the work.

The author is clearly very knowledgeable of the topic and the narration is stellar, so it is particularly disappointing that the book is so invested in refuting misconceptions (that Christianity is a solely European tradition, that medieval Islam was uniquely tolerant, etc.) that are unlikely to be held by anyone who picks up a book on this topic in the first place that it has scant space left to actually delve into the social and theological history of the communities described.

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