Jenkins spills a lot of ink on lamenting the loss of the Christian churches of the Middle East and North Africa to be Muslim onslaught, and he bemoans present-day Christians' ignorance of this history and failure to draw lessons from it. This book is valuable for presenting a much more complete picture of how these churches disappeared, or almost disappeared. He counters the views of modern historians who often seem to portray Muslims as benevolent rulers, showing that while there were periods of peace and cohabitation, there were also horrendous massacres and forced conversions, extending into the 20th century with Muslim Turkey's genocide of half the Christian Armenian population. Jenkins rightly acknowledges that Christians (and biblical Jews) have also massacred Muslims (and other sects of Christians, for that matter). In the end, Jenkins' message is rather muddled. He offers hope for things to change in the long-term, pointing out how unimaginable it was to image the Jews returning to Israel after 1800 years. But the same history he has written about the decline of Christianity in parts of the world could be written by Muslims about their loss of Spain, Hungary, or other places. Although shot through with faith, Jenkins' book should make any intelligent person draw the logical conclusion: there is no god. While most humans seem to undeniably need belief in a higher power, the shape of that power differs significantly. It is ridiculous to think that one religion, whether it is Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or any other holds any exclusive place in the heart of an imagined deity. ( )

Very sad history of the lost Greek and Assyrian (Semitic) Monophysite, Nestorian and Helenist churches.

Looses a star for political correctness, equating all forms of Christianity. Besides Reformed literature, a good antidote would be Jacques Ellul’s _La subversion du christianisme_ [The Subversion of Christianity]. ( )

Jenkins does a grand job os illuminating the lost history of the eastern church. Western Christianity has been overly-smug in its (our) opinion that we evangelised the world, and that we stood alone against the Muslim tide. Jenkins tell the story of how Christianity and Islam coexisted and fed each other. Thought provoking and engaging. ( )

I am disappointed with the author's style: much to much repetition, and the line of the book meanders all over place and time. It would have been more informative, and more readable, if it had chosen a specific line and kept to it. Either trace the history, century by century, and cover the various patriarchies and archbishoprics in that order; or cover each region. Jenkins repeats over and over how ill-informed western people are about the history of the Eastern Church. Well, a justified assessment: but why reiterate it in every chapter?
I would say that this book is "too academic", due to the level of detail in place names and people. As has been said above, the readers are not familiar with this territory, yet the maps (thankfully there are some maps!) are repetitive and do not include details such as the names of regions. Cities by name without context do not help the reader enough. It's still too cumbersome to look up each strange placename in Wikipedia! But this book is not academic. Jenkins does not approach it as a formal historian's work. He mixes "likely" with factual details. In many places it's not clear which are his conclusions and which are deduced from the historical details.
So, I put the book down after reading two-thirds of it.
I am hoping for a better experience with "Jesus Wars".

Not really what I was hoping for, nor what it's advertized as. Most of the book, I would say, is taken up with a) complaints that Europeans and their descendants know too little about the churches of the East and b) attempts to make the history of those churches 'relevant.' You know what? I would much rather have an actual history of them than an argument that we don't have a history of them - which is self-evident, and ignorance of these churches must be the reason most people would read this book; and an actual history than an explanation of why we should 'care' about that history. You know why I care? I'm curious, and it's interesting. The history which is told in this book is repetitive and rambling. On the up-side, at least he's trying, and he can write quite well in bite size chunks. But there's no attempt to link the chunks together. Too bad- hopefully Jenkins, or someone else, will actually try to write a solid history of what really is a crazy interesting time. ( )