"Read 30 pages and discarded it because he's a geographer?"

No, I discarded it because it was crap, and it was obvious from the first 30 pages that the rest of the book was going to continue to be crap. I have no qualms about walking out of a crappy movie after the first 30 minutes, either. I mentioned that he was a geographer because it explained why his knowledge of history was pretty shallow.

"Tolstoy with regard to his usual conspiracy bullshit"

ROTFLMAO! This from the guy who thinks Gorbachev was a secret agent of the International Capitalists, on a mission since birth to bring down the Soviet Union from within.

"(the Ottomans were expanding at precisely the same time as the Protestant Reformation was occurring)"

The Ottomans started expanding a hundred years before Matin Luther was born; Byzantium fell in 1453 after the Ottomans had already conquered a good chunk of the Balkans and given the Venetians a few bloody noses.

"while exaggerating the superiority of the Islamic empires whenever they score a victory"

The Muslims scored either strategic or major tactical victories (and usually both) in 8 out of the 9 Crusades. I think an 8-1 record more or less speaks for itself and doesn't really need exaggeration.

"Seriously you people who simply dismiss work because they come from a particular discipline annoy the shit out of me."

And every time you post on a historical topic that doesn't involve the Soviet Union or the history of Marxist thought, you reinforce my bias.