Albrecht Fuess has written a detailed history of the Syro-Palestinian frontier during the Mamluk era in order to discover why this Turko-Muslim state, which occupied such an important geographical position astride Asian-to-Mediterranean trade routes, did not develop a naval force. Because this issue arises during a period that oceanic voyages of Europeans and the Indian Ocean expeditions of the Chinese marked the beginning of a new era in maritime history, his research will have wide appeal among historians.