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As remarkable as Columbus and the conquistador expeditions, the
history of Portuguese exploration is now almost forgotten. But
Portugal's navigators cracked the code of the Atlantic winds,
launched the expedition of Vasco da Gama to India and beat the
Spanish to the spice kingdoms of the East - then set about creating
the first long-range maritime empire. In an astonishing blitz of
thirty years, a handful of visionary and utterly ruthless empire
builders, with few resources but breathtaking ambition, attempted
to seize the Indian Ocean, destroy Islam and take control of world
trade. Told with Roger Crowley's customary skill and verve, this is
narrative history at its most vivid - an epic tale of navigation,
trade and technology, money and religious zealotry, political
diplomacy and espionage, sea battles and shipwrecks, endurance,
courage and terrifying brutality. Drawing on extensive first-hand
accounts, it brings to life the exploits of an extraordinary band
of conquerors - men such as Afonso de Albuquerque, the first
European since Alexander the Great to found an Asian empire - who
set in motion five hundred years of European colonisation and
unleashed the forces of globalisation.
The city of Acre, powerfully fortified and richly provisioned, was
the last crusader stronghold. When it fell in 1291, two hundred
years of Christian crusading in the Holy Land came to a bloody end.
With his customary narrative brilliance and immediacy, Roger
Crowley chronicles the tumultuous and violent attack on Acre, the
heaviest bombardment before the age of gunpowder, which left this
once great Mediterranean city a crumbling ruin. The 'Accursed
Tower' was the focal point of this siege. As the last garrison of
the Crusader defences, it came to symbolise the disintegration of
the old world and the rise of a new era of Islamic jihad. Crowley's
narrative is based on forensic research, drawing heavily on little
known first hand sources, both Christian and Arabic. This is a
fast-paced and gripping account of a pivotal moment in world
history.
The rise and fall of the Venetian empire stands unrivaled for
drama, intrigue, and sheer opulent majesty. In" City of Fortune,
"Roger Crowley, acclaimed historian and "New York Times"
bestselling author of "Empires of the Sea, "applies his narrative
skill to chronicling the astounding five-hundred-year voyage of
Venice to the pinnacle of power.
Tracing the full arc of the Venetian imperial saga for the first
time, "City of Fortune" is framed around two of the great
collisions of world history: the ill-fated Fourth Crusade, which
culminated in the sacking of Constantinople and the carve-up of the
Byzantine Empire in 1204, and the Ottoman-Venetian War of
1499-1503, which saw the Ottoman Turks supplant the Venetians as
the preeminent naval power in the Mediterranean. In between were
three centuries of Venetian maritime dominance--years of plunder
and plague, conquest and piracy--during which a tiny city of
"lagoon dwellers" grew into the richest place on earth.
Drawing on firsthand accounts of pitched sea battles, skillful
negotiations, and diplomatic maneuvers, Crowley paints a vivid
picture of this avaricious, enterprising people and the bountiful
lands that came under their dominion. Defiant of emperors,
indifferent to popes, the Venetians saw themselves as reluctant
freebooters, compelled to take to the open seas "because we cannot
live otherwise and know not how except by trade." From the opening
of the spice routes to the clash between Christianity and Islam,
Venice played a leading role in the defining conflicts of its
time--the reverberations of which are still being felt today. Only
an author with Roger Crowley's deep knowledge of post-Crusade
history could put these iconic events into their proper context.
Epic in scope, magisterial in its understanding of the period,
"City of Fortune" is narrative history at its most engrossing.
Empires of the Sea shows the Mediterranean as a majestic and bloody
theatre of war. Opening with the Ottoman victory in 1453 it is a
breathtaking story of military crusading, Barbary pirates, white
slavery and the Ottoman Empire - and the larger picture of the
struggle between Islam and Christianity. Coupled with dramatic set
piece battles, a wealth of riveting first-hand accounts, epic
momentum and a terrific denouement at Lepanto, this is a work of
history at its broadest and most compelling.
In 1521, Suleiman the Magnificent, Muslim ruler of the Ottoman
Empire, dispatched an invasion fleet to the Christian island of
Rhodes. This would prove to be the opening shot in an epic clash
between rival empires and faiths for control of the Mediterranean
and the center of the world. In Empires of the Sea, " "acclaimed
historian Roger Crowley has written a thrilling account of this
brutal decades-long battle between Christendom and Islam for the
soul of Europe, a fast-paced tale of spiraling intensity that
ranges from Istanbul to the Gates of Gibraltar. Crowley conjures up
a wild cast of pirates, crusaders, and religious warriors
struggling for supremacy and survival in a tale of slavery and
galley warfare, desperate bravery and utter brutality. Empires of
the Sea is a story of extraordinary color and incident, and
provides a crucial context for our own clash of civilizations.
In the spring of 1453, the Ottoman Turks advanced on Constantinople
in pursuit of an ancient Islamic dream: capturing the
thousand-year-old capital of Christian Byzantium. During the siege
that followed, a small band of badly organised defenders,
outnumbered ten to one, confronted the might of the Ottoman army in
a bitter contest fought on land, sea and underground, and directed
by two remarkable men - Sultan Mehmet II and the Emperor
Constantine XI. In the fevered religious atmosphere, heightened by
the first massed use of artillery bombardment, both sides feared
that the end of the world was nigh. The outcome of the siege,
decided in a few short hours on 29 May 1453, is one of the great
set-piece moments of world history.
"The rise and fall of Venice's empire is an irresistible story and
Roger] Crowley, with his rousing descriptive gifts and scholarly
attention to detail, is its perfect chronicler."--"The Financial
Times"
" "
The "New York Times" bestselling author of "Empires of the Sea"
charts Venice's astounding five-hundred-year voyage to the pinnacle
of power in an epic story that stands unrivaled for drama,
intrigue, and sheer opulent majesty. "City of Fortune "traces the
full arc of the Venetian imperial saga, from the ill-fated Fourth
Crusade, which culminates in the sacking of Constantinople in 1204,
to the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499-1503, which sees the Ottoman
Turks supplant the Venetians as the preeminent naval power in the
Mediterranean. In between are three centuries of Venetian maritime
dominance, during which a tiny city of "lagoon dwellers" grow into
the richest place on earth. Drawing on firsthand accounts of
pitched sea battles, skillful negotiations, and diplomatic
maneuvers, Crowley paints a vivid picture of this avaricious,
enterprising people and the bountiful lands that came under their
dominion. From the opening of the spice routes to the clash between
Christianity and Islam, Venice played a leading role in the
defining conflicts of its time--the reverberations of which are
still being felt today.
" Crowley] writes with a racy briskness that lifts sea battles and
sieges off the page."--"The New York Times"
"Crowley chronicles the peak of Venice's past glory with
Wordsworthian sympathy, supplemented by impressive learning and
infectious enthusiasm.""--The Wall Street Journal"
Now in trade paperback, a gripping exploration of the fall of
Constantinople and its connection to the world we live in today The
fall of Constantinople in 1453 signaled a shift in history, and the
end of the Byzantium Empire. Roger Crowley's readable and
comprehensive account of the battle between Mehmed II, sultan of
the Ottoman Empire, and Constantine XI, the 57th emperor of
Byzantium, illuminates the period in history that was a precursor
to the current jihad between the West and the Middle East.
A gripping exploration of the fall of Constantinople and its
connection to the world we live in today.
The fall of Constantinople in 1453 signaled a shift in history and
the end of the Byzantium Empire. Roger Crowley's readable and
comprehensive account of the battle between Mehmet II, sultan of
the Ottoman Empire, and Constantine XI, the 57th emperor of
Byzantium, illuminates the period in history that was a precursor
to the current conflict between the West and the Middle East.
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