Prior to its release, the book was the subject of an article in The Guardian by architecture correspondent Oliver Wainwright, titled "Looted landmarks: how Notre-Dame, Big Ben and St Mark's were stolen from the east".[1] Subsequent reviews mentioned this article and how its title built interest in the book through controversy, but also called it oversimplified and unrepresentative of the book's contents.[3][3][4] A review in Germany's Der Tagesspiegel noted that the book coincided with the international controversy over Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, a former church and museum that had been reconverted into a mosque.[1] Contrary to Wainwright's headline, Darke instead argues that culture is interconnected and architecture does not belong to a single culture.[5] In the book, she mentions how the Muslims themselves adapted some elements from the Greek and Roman remains in the Middle East.[4]