Since Samuel Huntington unveiled his “Clash of Civilization” thesis in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article, a cottage industry of critiques have emerged to challenge it. Great thinkers, such as Amartya Sen, Amin Maalouf and Edward Said, have expended time and ink to refute Huntington’s controversial thesis. For the most part, these works have presented rationale critiques that focus on theoretical problems raised by Samuel Huntington’s board game like simplification of geopolitics and global history. Few of these critiques have, however, tried to counter Huntington’s argument with primary source research or been as readable as Ian Almond’s Two Faiths One Banner: When Muslims Marches with Christians Across Europe’s Battlegrounds (2011).

In this slim book, Almond shows that European history is far more muddled than Huntington’s depiction of one overarching “clash” between two visions of Abrahamic monotheism. Indeed the individual motivations and allegiances proves far to complex to paint with even the most vivid neoconservative or Marxist brush strokes. In making this argument, Almond cuts across wide historical periods, as well as the politics of several different centuries, demonstrating a mastery of facts, figures and a flair for colorful details.

The success of Almond’s argument lies in its exclusive focus on military campaigns and the colorful historical figures associated with these efforts. Beginning in eleventh century Andalusia and ending with the Crimean War in the mid-ninenteenth century, the book examines periods in which Muslim and Christian groups were fighting together rather than against one another in various battlefields. Rather than antagonistic civilizations, Almond’s reading of history suggests that individual units and individuals often had distinct allegiances that would surprise those eager to fit the world into neat left-wing or right-wing paradigms. (more…)