The citadel of al-Karak is the best preserved fortification in central and southern Jordan and is arguably one of the most impressive surviving examples of military architecture in the Middle East. The present structure was initially erected by the Crusaders and subsequently modified, most notably under the Mamluks, but written evidence suggests that earlier fortifications had existed on this site. Al-Karak was, from the citadel's construction in the twelfth century until its seventeenth-century demise, the regional capital of central and southern Jordan. It controlled strategic lines of communication (such as the King's Highway) and functioned as the administrative, military, and economic hub of the region. Its history has not been subject to a monograph yet, which makes the book under review an important contribution to the history of the Middle Period in the Syrian lands.

The book focuses on the castle of al-Karak itself, but includes – despite the modesty of the title – a discussion of the dependent territories. It is divided into two parts, discussing the historical (Part I, pp. 25–134) and the archaeological evidence (that is ceramics, Part II, pp. 137–272). The first part is divided into three chapters on the political, administrative and economic history of the castle and its surrounding areas. The second consists of two main chapters discussing respectively unglazed and glazed ceramics from al-Karak. Appendix 1 is a catalogue of these ceramics (pp. 273–383) and Appendix 2 identifies the sites that have been subject to archaeological publications or surveys (pp. 384–401). Over forty black and white plates support the discussion.

A strong feature of the book is its broad periodical coverage, which allows it to bridge not only the Crusader and Ayyubid periods but, more importantly, the Mamluk and Ottoman eras. This broad periodical outlook enables the author to discuss continuities and breaks across such arbitrary borderlines. The overview of the political history and the discussion of economic development in particular are the first accounts that offer such an integrated view of the region.

The most important part of the book, however, is the analysis of the over 8,200 pottery shards recovered from within the citadel, the slopes around its walls and sectors beyond the boundaries of the old town wall. The recovery was the result of previous work conducted by the Jordanian Department of Antiquities and the Miller survey. The major challenge in the analysis of this material comes down to dating: as the larger parts of the analysed shards are from unstratified deposits, the author had recourse to data from other sites in the Levant in order to date them. In consequence, the two main steps undertaken in this work are the creation of a ceramic sequence in order to identify the fluctuations in pottery consumption and an analysis of the distribution patterns for individual pottery types. Milwright has done impressive work on this material and is to be commended for the meticulous discussion in these chapters. The arguments the author advances on the basis of this material are manifold. He shows, for example, that the distribution of different types of ceramics reflects to some degree the socio-economic divide between urban and rural areas, but that it also reveals the relationship between consumption patterns in the town and the surrounding regions. This distribution of ceramics also allows the author to identify the existence of secondary markets in the region.

The central argument of the book is a methodological one, namely the necessity of integrating historical and archaeological evidence in order to establish a meaningful picture of the political and economic history of al-Karak in the Middle Period. This argument is put into practice in chapter 9, where the author skilfully combines his results based on analysis of the ceramics with our knowledge of the written sources. The ceramic evidence supports, for example, the impression of an economic decline in the region during the later Mamluk period – which is particularly relevant as the existence of this decline has been challenged recently.

While Part II is excellent, the first part is much more problematic. It relies to a strong degree on secondary sources and those Arabic primary sources that are used are often inappropriate. For the Crusader and Ayyubid periods, for example, the sources date mainly to the Mamluk period. The rich historiographical tradition of twelfth and thirteenth-century Syria, in contrast, is hardly taken into account. For instance, Ibn Wāṣil's Mufarrij al-kurūb is rarely referred to, yet this author has a great deal to say about al-Karak, where he spent several years and held administrative positions in the early 1230s. Further, the biographical tradition is hardly used in the study and the author seems to assume that the relevant written tradition is limited to chronicles and geographical works. For instance, his remarks on the town's notables are tucked away in a short footnote (p. 16, n. 40) whereas easily available sources such as al-Dhahabī's Ta'rīkh al-Islām would have given a much broader picture. In contrast to the author's statement that “there exist few detailed descriptions of the bureaucratic and military personnel who occupied the town and castle through the periods of Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman rule” (p. 17) the material that we have, at least on the civilian elite, is much richer.

There is a similar contrast between Parts I and II in formal terms: while the latter is formally of a high standard, the former is problematic in several ways. Erroneous transcription pervades the text and the bibliography: the feminine plural has a short vowel (p. 416: mufradat > mufradāt; p. 426: makhlūqat > makhlūqāt), the initial hamza is confused with the alif (p. 415: āmṣār > ’amṣār), short vowels are mistaken for long (p. 404: bashār > bashar), long vowels are mistaken for short (p. 417: al-Shafiʾī -> al-Shāfiʾī), and incorrect letters are chosen (p. 416: hawādith > ḥawādith; p. 417: Diyā’ -> Ḍiyā'; al-Muzaffar > al-Muẓaffar). In addition, the article is constantly erroneously omitted or inserted in personal names (p. 417: Idrīsī > al-Idrīsī; p. 426: Qazwīnī > al-Qazwīnī; p. 422: Maqrīzī > al-Maqrīzī, etc.) and in grammatical constructions (p. 417: fatḥ al-qudsī > al-fatḥ al-qudsī). The problem can be summarized with the transcription of al-Muqaddasī's work: (p. 423: Muqaddasī [sic]: Kitāb aḥsān [sic] al-taqāsim [sic] fī-maʾrifat [sic] al-aqālim [sic]).

Nevertheless, the narrative is still valuable because it is the first detailed account that we have of the political, administrative and economic history of al-Karak and will serve as the basis for future studies. The second part is without reservation excellent and will remain the standard work on this issue.