Though most are informative, the contributions in this volume are uneven in scope, approaches to subject matter, and quality. Overall, the work strikes one less as an authoritative reference than as a pastiche. In comparison to the Cambridge Ancient History volumes, which also deal with Eastern Christianity, for example vols. 13 and 14, the present collection was not as well-planned. It should have carried the title “Eastern Christian Churches” rather than “Eastern Christianity.” Judging from its presentation, it would seem that between 1000 c.e. and the modern period the population east of the Adriatic numbered merely a few hundred clerics and theologians, and one pilgrim.

Taken individually, many of the articles are done well, but as an ensemble they are incoherent. The best example of this is Alexander Grishin's contribution, “Bars'kyj and the Orthodox Community” (210–228). This text constitutes one of two articles on Byzantine Orthodoxy that also offer data on what actual Christians believed and experienced, the other being Chris Chulos's “Russian Piety from Peter the Great to 1917” (348–370). However, unlike Chulos's contribution, Grishin's is much too narrow in scope for a work of this type. It is essentially a retelling of the travels of one person. Grishin does not even attempt to provide a reflection on the social data that can be found throughout his work. In another context, the article would be a gem in the rough. In the present setting, it feels out of place.

Paschalis M. Kitromilides, in “The Legacy of the French Revolution: Orthodoxy and Nationalism” (229–249), offers something other than objective historiography. The author's bias is stated clearly on 246, in reference to two Arab Christian intellectuals of the twentieth century, Khalil Sakakini and Iskandar Quburisi. According to Kitromilides, “It turned out that, if an Arab was to commit his life to the nationalist cause, he had to leave his Christianity behind. This is what both of these remarkable thinkers opted to do, leaving a powerful existential testimony on the incompatibility between Orthodox Christianity and nationalism.” Many Palestinian Orthodox Christians would beg to differ with such a statement. Nevertheless, this is the thesis that runs through the entire article: church canons are good, but nationalism is bad for Orthodoxy. Most perplexing is that, although the term “French Revolution” occurs in its title, nowhere does the author offer even an attempt to explain precisely what he means by “Western ideological influence” (229). The question of nationalism and Christianity (of any flavor) is an important one, but it does not receive an objective treatment in this article.

A further selection of material for this book which is confounding to this reader is that of Françoise Micheau, “Eastern Christianities (Eleventh to Fourteenth Century): Copts, Melkites, Nestorians, and Jacobites” (373–403). It is apparent right from the title that these topics are not Micheau's specialties. The terms “Jacobite,” “Nestorian,” and “Monophysite” that recur in this article are 30 years out of date. The narrative opens with a definition of these churches that identifies them as having the status of protected people under Islamic Shari'a law, and their members as dhimmis. While this was certainly the case officially, the way that this status obtained “on the ground” was in fact very complex, varying over time, place, and community. But why would one begin a chapter on these Christianities through the lens of what Muslims thought of them? Lumping all of these churches into a single chapter is not at all helpful to the reader. One bright spot is that Micheau mentions some of the Christian Arabic authors. Yet the claim that there was no “theological development” in this period is not entirely accurate. One glaring omission makes the point: nowhere is there any mention of the pioneering work of Theodore Abu Qurrah. Even if his floruit falls before the time envisioned by the scope of this book, his work in theology was seminal to the manner in which Christians in the region expressed their theology in Arabic. Much more disappointing is the almost complete omission of the great Syriac writers of this period: Moshe bar Kepha, Dionysius bar Salibi, and Gregory Bar Hebraeus (except for one incidental mention).

A further deplorable omission of this volume is the lack of any article addressing the presence of Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians in the Near East. During the time under consideration, they also formed a part of the Eastern Christian landscape, their presence was important and, at least from the perspective of many native Eastern Christians, Protestants and Roman Catholics made substantial contributions to society, despite the sometimes negative repercussions their influence and presence brought along with it. The volume's treatment of the Syriac Churches in the Middle Ages especially leaves much to be desired: this was a vast, dynamic, and complex segment of Christianity, having established itself across Asia into China and into southern India. Syriac Christians for sure were not simply a “dhimmi” religion defined by Islam.

The volume's articles on the Eastern churches in the modern period are of better quality, but as contributions they belong in a separate volume. S. Peter Cowe's two essays (“The Armenians in the Era of the Crusades 1050–1350” [404–429] and “Church and Diaspora: The Case of the Armenians” [430–455]) are examples of what good articles on Eastern Christianity are: historically and theologically astute, comprehensive, yet with a keen sense for how history and society fit together. Anthony O'Mahony's two articles, one on Coptic Christianity and one on Syriac Christianity, as well as Donald Crummey's on the Ethiopian Tewahedo Church, are also good introductions. Again here, it would have been a worthwhile goal for the editor to have challenged all of the contributors to produce articles that were more nuanced, including with respect to social religious history.

The remaining articles in the volume are quite engaging. Overall, the copyediting of the volume was conducted with care (only a few copyediting problems, including one on p. 237, in the last sentence of the first paragraph, could be spotted). The volume will be of interest for acquisition by librarians. The price prohibits wider circulation and distribution, it would seem. A reader will benefit from consulting a recent special issue of the Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies (7:2 [2005]) on Christians in the Middle East, guest-edited by the late Avril Makhlouf and titled Christianity at the Crossroads of Civilization, alongside the present volume.