War Without End: A Brief History of the Muslim Conquests

http://www.crisismagazine.com/feature2.htm

[Crisis Magazine] November 8, 2005--Crusading ideals in the West were an answer to the greater threat of jihad. They were spurred by fear and necessity in a desperate competition with Islam that, for many centuries, Christians lost—and were aware that they were losing. The extent of Islam’s victories can be seen in the all-but-complete disappearance of the once-thriving Christian communities in North Africa, the Middle East, and Western Asia, as well as the deep roots that Islam still has in the Balkans—a region whose very name was imposed upon it by successful late medieval Turkish imperialism.

Islam - a religion of "peace"?!