Readers glancing at Erica Cruikshank Dodd’s book on the frescoes in the Syrian Monastery of Moses the Ethiopian will not find ready evidence of the “new art history.” Unfashionable terms like “influence” and “Oriental” abound, and nowhere does one come across references to “the gaze” or the construction of gender. More careful examination, however, will soon show that Dodd indeed participates in current debates about the visual culture of the Mediterranean in the period of the Crusades. She does so in two principal ways: by bringing to scholarly attention a virtually unknown painted church program from Muslim-controlled Syria, and by proposing a new interpretation of the interchange of artistic styles and subjects from East to West. Her contribution is substantial and in many ways original. The main subjects of Dodd’s work are the frescoes in the monastic church of Mar Musa al-Habashi (St. Moses the Ethiopian), located near Nebek, Syria. The paintings belong to two principal phases: The first was completed between 1058 and 1088 C.E., and the final, major program dates to 1192 C.E. Dodd has compiled an impressive amount of information, documentary evidence, and interpretation in this dense, compact book. The text principally consists of clear analyses of...