In 1683, an Ottoman army that stretched from horizon to horizon set out to seize the "Golden Apple," as Turks referred to Vienna. The ensuing siege pitted battle-hardened Janissaries wielding seventeenth-century grenades against Habsburg armies, widely feared for their savagery. The walls of Vienna bristled with guns as the besieging Ottoman host launched bombs, fired cannons, and showered the populace with arrows during the battle for Christianity's...

"The Conservative Party has been in power for 47 of the 65 years since the end of World War II. During that time the division within the party over Europe has been the enduring drama of British politics--from Churchill's decision not to join the original European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 to Cameron's decision to hold the Brexit referendum in 2016. Other leaders came and went, but the issue was always there--sometimes center-stage, at others...

"The Last Muslim Conquest chronicles the emergence of the Ottoman dynasty and its conquests in Europe, offering a new synthesis of the Ottoman impact on early modern Europe. In telling the story of conquest and imperial rivalry, the book introduces myriad characters, from sultans, kings, popes, generals, and admirals, to lesser-known but equally colorful viziers, frontier governors, envoys, interpreters, spies, and pirates. The narrative brings to...

"A gripping and groundbreaking account of how all but one of FDR's ambassadors in Europe misjudged Hitler and his intentions As German tanks rolled toward Paris in late May 1940, the U.S. Ambassador to France, William Bullitt, was determined to stay put, holed up in the Chateau St. Firmin in Chantilly, his country residence. Bullitt told the president that he would neither evacuate the embassy nor his chateau, an eighteenth Renaissance manse with...