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These Osprey Campaign books are quite useful to those with a hobbiest, rather than professional interest in Military History. The Baltic was a seriously political sea during the time period covered by this book. One of the ideas I crystallized during the reading was the extent to which the Orthodox Christian World found itself the victim of Western European military adventurism during those days. Constantinople had fallen to a buccaneering Fourth Crusade in 1204, and even the far reaches of the Russian north was facing off with the Scandinavian and German expansionists a generation later. the extent to which the Mongol yoke was preferable to the Western brand of Catholicism is revealed here. Also, the usual high standard of mapping and battle analysis is present, as well as a discussion of the difficulties that modern military analysts face when their information is filtered through monkish chroniclers due a lack of thirteenth century professional military writers. As usual, an interesting read. ( )