A pair of histories

There is a new history of the Crusades that looks rather good. The PW reviewer said it was "likely" to replace Steven Runciman's magisterial trilogy as the standard work. High praise indeed. What interests me most is that the Levantine crusades are considered with the Reconquista and the Baltic Crusades. What worries me is that the book is over 1000 pages long. 1K of history can be quite a bit.

Max Boot was on Talk of the Nation to discuss his new book on military revolutions. The concept of the military revolution is that a combination of social, economic and technological factors can change how warfare is fought and change the definition of power. The major question for today's military is whether the world is undergoing a new revolution or not.