Status Updates From Cairo: The City Victorious

Ugh we have got to the traditional part of popular books on medieval middle eastern history where we get a long list of the things Western European barbarians learned while they were on crusade, from crossbows to stirrups to medicine to soap (!) The problem is that at least half these things are demonstrably wrong. Eg medicine, in the view of academic scholars, was about the same on both sides of the Mediterranean.