The subtitle hath it. The author constantly manages to unseat the reader with sentences like ""At this moment in history material is sparse, as chicken in a frozen chicken pie, on the subject of people riding horses."" Or ""People were bustling about like ladies at a department store sale, on their way to battle, on their way home from battle or battling."" And her asides are really off the track: ""(I'm terribly sorry about these digressions. They just happen. I get so absorbed in these moments of history that I sometimes forget the horses.)"" Forgive? Neigh!