First off, unlike many of the other reviewers, I am not especially interested in history. The last history class I took was in high school. Nonetheless, I am fairly well-read and have a wide variety of interests.

Before I started the book, I skimmed the amazon reviews and was optimistic. I knew next to nothing about the crusades and was excited to learn more about a such a well-known and referenced topic that many people don't actually know that much about.

The first thing I noticed was that this book is not an exciting, easy-to-read narrative. In general, it is well-written and easy to understand. But the story-telling is nothing to write home about, and there are many sections that are long and boring like only a history book can be. There were many long passages that took on the form: "So-and-so conquered this hard-to-pronounce town, then conquered this hard-to-pronounce town, encountering little resistance, then continued on to...." etc. etc. etc. for a couple paragraphs...you get the idea.

I suspect that the reviewers raving about the compelling narrative and story telling are probably big history buffs who are used to reading huge dry tomes of history where the boring passages constitute the whole of the book.

Despite those complaints, I remained interested through the end of the volume. I now am more informed about the first crusade than I ever expected to be. I went from knowing nothing about the crusades to knowing the important countries, people, religions, etc.

Overall this is a good book. I'm glad I read it. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in history and the crusades. But I would also deliver that recommendation with a warning that this is still a history book, and frequently reads like one, despite the claims of the other reviewers. And I wont be reading the next volume - I think I'll stick to wikipedia for the next crusades and get the condensed version.