Empires of the sea: the siege of Malta, the battle of Lepanto, and the contest for the center of the world
Description
This struggles brutal climax came between 1565 and 1571, seven years that witnessed a fight to the finish decided in a series of bloody set pieces: the epic siege of Malta, in which a tiny band of Christian defenders defied the might of the Ottoman army; the savage battle for Cyprus; and the apocalyptic last-ditch defense of southern Europe at Lepantoone of the single most shocking days in world history. At the close of this cataclysmic naval encounter, the carnage was so great that the victors could barely sail away because of the countless corpses floating in the sea. Lepanto fixed the frontiers of the Mediterranean world that we know today.
Roger 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, technology and Inca gold. Empires of the Sea is page-turning narrative history at its besta story of extraordinary color and incident, rich in detail, full of surprises, and backed by a wealth of eyewitness accounts. It provides a crucial context for our own clash of civilizations.
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9780812977646
9781400127221
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Published Reviews
Booklist Review
Is the West engaged in a clash of civilizations with the Islamic peoples of the Middle East? According to Crowley, that clash occurred in the sixteenth century, when Islam, under the leadership of the Ottoman Turks, seemed poised to dominate most of Europe. The impregnable city of Constantinople had been taken in 1453, and by the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Turks were ensconced in the Balkans. The key to the struggle between the Turks and the Christian West was control of the eastern rim of the Mediterranean Sea. The Turks had a formidable fleet, while the divided, quarreling Christian states seemed particularly vulnerable. Yet, through a combination of valor, military skill, and blind luck, the Christian West prevailed. Crowley's exciting saga shows this struggle as grim, heroic, and inspiring. At the siege of Malta, a few hundred knights, remnants of a crusading order, held off 30,000 invading Turks. At Lepanto, Christians and Turks engaged in a naval bloodbath that decisively stemmed the Islamic tide. A beautifully written chronicle of a great and seminal struggle.--Freeman, Jay Copyright 2008 Booklist
Publisher's Weekly Review
Crowley (1453), an independent scholar of the 16th-century Mediterranean, focuses here on the final contest between Christian and Muslim, Hapsburg and Ottoman, for control of the Middle Sea. Masterfully synthesizing primary and secondary sources, he vividly reconstructs the great battles, Malta and Lepanto, that shaped the struggle and introduces the larger-than-life personalities that dominated council chambers and fields of battle. This was a time of hard men who took high risks, asked no mercy and gave no quarter. Familiar figures like Philip II of Spain and Suleiman the Magnificent share the stage with Jean de La Valette, whose inspired defense of Malta in 1565 checked a tide of Ottoman victories, and the great corsair Hayrettin Barbarossa. Crowley recreates the fighting and the brutality in page-turning prose that never sacrifices accuracy for color. He also demonstrates that the conflict, which ended with a compromise peace in 1580, marked the Mediterranean basin's end as the center of the world. Henceforth the loci of power would shift elsewhere in a modernizing world. Illus. (July 1) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Book Review
Exciting re-creation of the epic mid-16th-century struggle between the encroaching Ottoman Empire and the beleaguered Christian Europeans. Crowley picks up where he left off in 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West (2005). After the fall of Constantinople to Mehmet the Conqueror and his army of Turks, the author writes, it was only a matter of time before Mehmet's great-grandson Suleiman set out to achieve his own ambition to become "Padishah of the White Sea"--the Mediterranean. From the 1520s on, Suleiman and later his son Selim II clashed repeatedly with Charles V and then Philip II of Spain in a battle for holy ascendancy that stretched from Rhodes to Tunis, Cyprus to Lepanto. Suleiman unleashed his murderous corsairs, led by the Barbarossa brothers, to wreak havoc on the Barbary Coast (North Africa), while Charles employed the astute services of the valiant Genoese sea commander Andrea Doria. Radiating from Madrid and Istanbul across Europe, the engines of imperial power collided catastrophically in 1565 on the rugged island of Malta, a launch pad for the crusading Knights of Saint John headed by the zealous Jean Parisot de La Valette. Here Crowley lingers with chillingly detailed precision, depicting the armada of Turkish galleys bearing down on the island. Seventy-year-old La Valette and his 6,000 or so fighting men hastily prepared for defense against an Ottoman force exceeding 20,000. The Knights and the rest of Europe were convinced that this was the final redoubt, "the glorious last-ditch stand against impossible odds, massacre, martyrdom, and death." What ensued was a four-month bloodbath, with the Christians routing the Turks and checking their advance into the White Sea. A masterly narrative that captures the religious fervor, brutality and mayhem of this intensive contest for the "center of the world." Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Reviews
Is the West engaged in a "clash of civilizations" with the Islamic peoples of the Middle East? According to Crowley, that clash occurred in the sixteenth century, when Islam, under the leadership of the Ottoman Turks, seemed poised to dominate most of Europe. The "impregnable city" of Constantinople had been taken in 1453, and by the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Turks were ensconced in the Balkans. The key to the struggle between the Turks and the Christian West was control of the eastern rim of the Mediterranean Sea. The Turks had a formidable fleet, while the divided, quarreling Christian states seemed particularly vulnerable. Yet, through a combination of valor, military skill, and blind luck, the Christian West prevailed. Crowley's exciting saga shows this struggle as grim, heroic, and inspiring. At the siege of Malta, a few hundred knights, remnants of a crusading order, held off 30,000 invading Turks. At Lepanto, Christians and Turks engaged in a naval bloodbath that decisively stemmed the Islamic tide. A beautifully written chronicle of a great and seminal struggle. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.
Publishers Weekly Reviews
Crowley (1453 ), an independent scholar of the 16th-century Mediterranean, focuses here on the final contest between Christian and Muslim, Hapsburg and Ottoman, for control of the Middle Sea. Masterfully synthesizing primary and secondary sources, he vividly reconstructs the great battles, Malta and Lepanto, that shaped the struggle and introduces the larger-than-life personalities that dominated council chambers and fields of battle. This was a time of hard men who took high risks, asked no mercy and gave no quarter. Familiar figures like Philip II of Spain and Suleiman the Magnificent share the stage with Jean de La Valette, whose inspired defense of Malta in 1565 checked a tide of Ottoman victories, and the great corsair Hayrettin Barbarossa. Crowley recreates the fighting and the brutality in page-turning prose that never sacrifices accuracy for color. He also demonstrates that the conflict, which ended with a compromise peace in 1580, marked the Mediterranean basin's end as the center of the world. Henceforth the loci of power would shift elsewhere in a modernizing world. Illus. (July 1)
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