The book "Under the Shadow of the Cross and Crescent" by Mark R. Cohen was a response to the polar opinions about Judeo-Muslim relations in the Middle Ages that existed in historical literature. Trying to counter both the myth of interfaith utopia and the anti-myth of continuous brutal persecution, the author using the comparative historical method explains why the Islamic world of the Middle Ages, especially from the formation of Islam to the Mamluk era, was much safer for Jews than life in the northern part of Christian Europe.