As others have said there is a tone of anti-Arab propaganda to the book. I think Pirene's original hypothesis makes sense and some of the points raised in the book about Islamic raiding and piracy having a negative impact on 7th,8th and 9th century European economy and the loss of papyrus as a resource in Europe harmed learning and literacy are true and cannot be denied. However, the author goes into periodic rants about the evil of Arab/Muslim behavior and nature that detracts from his arguments. Other things that bothered me are how he went about making his arguments. He often states his conclusions and then says words to the effect of "I will explain or back that up later". He likes to have his cake and eat it too also. He says Alkwarizmi, who brought algebra to Europe through his translated works had no original thoughts, he was just repeating the Greek Diophantus. So the Arabs and Islam should not get credit for algebra. Later he says that Alkwarizmi was not an Arab, he was a Persian, so the Arabs and Islam should not get credit. Basically, it does not matter if, why or how algebra got to Europe, just don't give credit to the Arabs or Islam. He also throws in fringe ideas about there being no history actually occurring between about 700 and the year 1000 based on the lack of archaeological evidence in those years. He dismisses the idea but keeps bringing it up and supporting it when describing archeological digs. He also talks about some archeologists backdating finds from the 10th century 100 or 200 years just to fill in these blanks. He says they are wrong, but then suggests backdating events in the history of Islam to line them up with the Persian wars. This is to prop up another theory that says the Persian armies actually pulled off the Arab conquest of Rome because Arabs were not capable of doing it.

I would like another, different book that looks at the same era and events and argues Pirene's hypothesis based on modern evidence in a more rational, calm way and without the fringe theories popping in. ( )