Product Description

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 defenders, outnumbered ten to one, confronted the might of the Ottoman army in an epic contest fought on land, sea and underground.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17813 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Review
"'A powerful telling of an extraordinary story, presented with a clarity and a confidence that most academic historians would envy.' Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph 'Narrative history at its most enthralling.' Christopher Silvester, Daily Express 'Engagingly fresh and vivid.' Malise Ruthven, Sunday Times"

Malise Ruthven, Sunday Times
Engagingly fresh and vivid.

Christopher Silvester, Daily Express
Narrative history at its most enthralling.

Customer Reviews

A great tale rendered brilliantly
Loads of high-profile historical books are praised to the rafters these days, and yet when you read them you often find that the writer has not fully got to grips with the subject matter, and you end up absorbing little real knowledge or deriving much entertainment.

This book is an exception. Lucid, exciting and thoroughly entertaining, this is one of the best I've ever read.

Atmospheric and Entertaining
If you have had the pleasure of reading John Julius Norwich's outstanding trilogy on the Byzantine empire then you will know that it comes to an end in May 1453. This book focuses on that fateful day telling the story in an entertaining and absorbing manner. If you are a student of history or just and interested amateur like myself you will find this book excellent, I would recommend reading it along with Runciman's the Fall of Constantinople for a comprehensive overview of this climactic event in world history.

Powerful and gripping
I really enjoyed this book. The style is scholarly and it is very well researched but still accesible and easy to read.

The author gives a powerful account of a terrible and brutal siege where the defenders of the city of Constantinople defend themselves against a huge attacking force sent by the Ottoman sultan. Atrocities are committed by both sides. The defenders are heavily outnumbered, largely abandoned by the Christian world and under constant bombardment from the Ottoman cannon. Eventually the walls that have protected the city for hundreds of years are breached and the city falls.

The book is very well written and the author builds up the drama and tension of the siege very well. The fall of Constantinople is shown as a traumatic event for Christian Europe although the author suggests at the end that maybe life under the Ottoman rule was not all bad !