This eclectic collection of conference papers roams widely across insular theory and the diplomatic, military and domestic history of the Order of St John's occupation of Rhodes and Malta, taking in excursions into studies of the experiences as rulers of islands and other supposedly insular regions of Templars, Teutonic knights and other military religious orders. The focus is on the Mediterranean, with forays into Madeira and the Caribbean islands of St Croix and St Kitts (for the Hospitaller presence there between 1653 and 1665). Many of the predominantly very brief papers describe archival or archaeological findings and give off the odour of labour at the coal-face and the sweat from working often very narrow seams. The attempt to provide coherence if not cohesion is not successful. However, there are some arresting nuggets brought to the surface, often concerning negotiated accommodation as well as exploitation in the ruling orders' relations with indigenous or imported subjects and with supposedly rival or hostile neighbours. A consistent awareness of economic and commercial context allows some useful contributions to the now fashionable specialism of Mediterranean studies. The typology of the orders' religious life, with the exception of Emanuel Buttigieg's nuanced piece on Hospitaller Malta, tends to the crudely two-dimensional. The Teutonic knights' use of the confrater system to build up networks of clients in Sicily, discussed by Hubert Houben, suggests fresh avenues of fruitful investigation. Karl Borchardt's close scrutiny of the introduction of humanist script into the Hospitaller's scriptoria invites wider analysis. Inevitably there is considerable repetition and occasional exaggeration, as in the editors' bizarre assertion that the fall of Brienne Athens in 1311 foreshadowed the expulsion of the Hospitallers from Malta in 1798. That forces onto the topic that they introduce a teleological unity that most of the essays that follow contradict.