Almost every history of the Crusades begins with the Council of Clermont in 1095, when Pope Urban II issued his (in)famous call to arms. However, Paul Cobb's The Race for Paradise is not your typical history of the Crusades. The premise of Cobb's study is incredibly simple: to see what happens when the Crusades are viewed from the Muslim perspective, using Muslim sources. By doing this, Cobb reveals a remarkably different story, wherein Frankish incursions into the Levant after 1095 are presented as a continuation of earlier assaults against Muslim territories in Spain and Sicily. In this version, Clermont itself does not even warrant mention, because for the Islamic world it did not mark the beginning of a new or different phenomenon, but simply the opening of a new theater. Additionally, while the impact of the Crusades on the Muslim world is usually written off as fleeting or largely inconsequential, Cobb argues that as part of a Mediterranean-wide assault that resulted in the permanent loss of both Spain and Sicily, the Crusades were both significant to Muslims and integral in shaping the course of Islamic history.

Cobb's study is organized chronologically and divided into nine chapters with topical subsections addressing concurrent events in different regions. The first chapter, perhaps the strongest in the work, examines the medieval Muslim worldview, including a discussion of Muslim perceptions of Latin Christendom up to the mid-eleventh century. The next chapter examines initial Frankish incursions into Sicily and Spain, demonstrating the connections drawn in the minds of medieval Muslims between these events and the eventual invasion of the Levant. Unconcerned with the Franks’ religious motives or justifications, Muslim observers viewed the attacks as God's punishment levied against all Muslims for the political and spiritual fragmentation of the community.

The following four chapters provide narrative overviews of the first three Crusades; the Muslim response to the establishment of the Crusader states; and the eventual rise of “jihad-savvy statesmen” such as Tughtakin, Zangi, Nur al-Din, and Saladin. These chapters also explore the often-overlooked intervals between different Crusading efforts, emphasizing the complex political and social transitions that followed Frankish assaults in each region. Additionally, Cobb masterfully juxtaposes the Almohads’ failure against the Crusading Franks in Lisbon to Saladin's successful retaking of Jerusalem. These parallel attempts, a mere forty years apart, perfectly showcase the Mediterranean-wide nature of the conflict. Chapter eight charts the rise of the Mongols and the Mamluks—the military slaves who overthrew Saladin's successors—and the defeat of the last Crusader states in Tripoli and Acre.

Just as Clermont marks the beginning, the fall of Acre in 1291 signifies the end of the traditional narrative of the Crusades. However, because the Crusaders relocated offshore to Cyprus and continued to lead campaigns against Mamluk Egypt, 1291 did not actually confer any sense of closure for Muslim observers. It was only the rise of the Ottomans accompanied by the collapse of Crusader Cyprus at the hands of Venice in 1490 that ended the longstanding Frankish threat to the eastern Mediterranean. In the western Mediterranean, the threat continued until the fall of Granada and permanent loss of Spain in 1492. Therefore, from the Muslim perspective, the Crusades, according to Cobb, continued for two centuries after most of Europe lost interest in the endeavor.

Overall, Cobb's work is an impressive and thought-provoking contribution to the historiography of both the Crusades and the Islamic world. The vignettes at the opening of each chapter are quite charming and the revised periodization he proposes promotes a shift away from Eurocentrism. For readers interested in the history, Cobb's work offers a trove of details and analysis presented in lucid prose with much-appreciated injections of humor. For readers not already interested in the subject, the detailed narrative can be overwhelming, making it easy to get bogged down and lose sight of the big picture. As a result, despite being written with non-specialists in mind, it is unfortunately not a book I would recommend assigning to undergraduates. That being said, not assigning it and not incorporating Cobb's findings are two different things. The Race for Paradise is an original and innovative work, which has the exciting potential to fundamentally alter the way we talk about, interpret, and teach the history of the Crusades.