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Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World

Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World

  • Hardcover
  • Author: Roger Crowley
  • Publisher: Random House
  • Release Date: July 2008
  • ISBN-10: 1400066247
  • ISBN-13: 9781400066247
  • List Price: $30.00

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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon

Summary

In 1521, Suleiman the Magnificent, Muslim ruler of the Ottoman Empire at the height of its power, dispatched an invasion fleet to the Christian island of Rhodes. This would prove to be the opening shot in an epic struggle 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 his most mesmerizing work to date–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 and features a cast of extraordinary characters: Barbarossa, “The King of Evil,” the pirate who terrified Europe; the risk-taking Emperor Charles V; the Knights of St. John, the last crusading order after the passing of the Templars; the messianic Pope Pius V; and the brilliant Christian admiral Don Juan of Austria.

This struggle’s 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 Lepanto–one 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 best–a 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.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: Score = 4.5 Score = 4.5 Score = 4.5 Score = 4.5 Score = 4.5

A nice broad overview - go to The Great Siege for a close-up

Rating: Score = 4 Score = 4 Score = 4 Score = 4 Score = 4

Crowley does a very good job of putting the struggle for the Mediterranean into its historical context. Reading his book allows you to see how the Christian West struggled against 'the Evil Empire' of a different era. I got this book from audible.com (a division of amazon) as a full-length audio which ws very enjoyably recorded. Still, I could not shake off the feeling that this book was fairly pale in comparison with Col E Bradford's magnificent The Great Siege: Malta 1565. Other reviewers have already referenced that book - it is available on amazon. Look it up - you will be in for a rare treat!

Fantastic

Rating: Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5

Wow. I could not put it down, but I had to, because I wanted the thrill and taste to last, so I devoured it chapter by chapter. Crowley has done an excellent job, not just as a writer or a historian, but as a movie director where the film is paper this time. He has set the scenes and characters expertly, one can almost smell the powder, and feel the breeze and heat of the fight and the colors and scenery painted so richly. He has not attempted a detailed and reference-laden academic book, but more of a novel. Little details and small events sprinkled throughout emphasizes the film format.
He has given a good feel for the scope and depth of the events. His excellent use of original Turkish references and knowledge of the culture has made it all the more real. Turks are not some distant alien and dangerous creatures, the way so many other Western authors have treated them until recently. A surge in scholarly work focusing on Ottoman history in recent decades has unlocked a very interesting chunk of history for Western readers.
As someone who had to read and study Ottoman history from elementary through high school, I wish Crowley had written a few of those very boring and stale textbooks we had to suffer. I never knew my history was so interesting. Sure I knew about Barbaros, but little else. Even as a student of history, I was surprised by the extent of Ottoman naval expeditions and conquests described here.
Shear size of the egos, the size of the battlefield, the whole of Mediteranean, human toil and attrition is just mind-boggling. Commitment to cause, bravery, treachery, the tactics and will power of both sides at Malta, the drama of it all left me in awe.
Excellent read even if you are not a history buff.

Incredibly gripping military history

Rating: Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5

This is an excellent piece of very readable military history covering a period often if not universally overlooked in the education of most people.

The author makes excellent uses of the sources available to him and lets the primary sources speak using their own voice whenever possible. This makes for a very reliable and well constructed piece of historical writing. His style is flowing and interesting and he refrains, mercifully, from dwelling too much on the gruesome details that abound in the historical record of the period.

I can wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone interested in an overview of the battles between Europe and an ascendant Ottoman empire at the hight of its powers in general or interested in a very detailed account of the absolutely fascinating siege of Malta. Its coverage of the battle of Lepanto is less well done but still competent. A great read.

Finally, the narrator in the audio version of the book is brilliant.

Essential background

Rating: Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5

I am working on a dissertation that investigates the founding of the Turkish Republic, the resolution of a trauma that began 350 years earlier. Crowley does an incredible job of portraying events through the eyes of the combatants at all levels. Yes, I intend to cite this work in my own work.

Well done.

Lepanto and the Modern World

Rating: Score = 4 Score = 4 Score = 4 Score = 4 Score = 4

This is a great work though its conclusion misses the most important point of all: the road from Malta to Lepanto marked the end of the last Muslim superpower. After 900 years, the business model, if you like, was obsolete. There were some failed attempts at recovery, notably the second siege of Vienna in 1680. But, after Lepanto, the Ottomans were on their way to becoming what Nicholas I in 1853 called "the sick man of Europe" and to setting the preconditions for the First World War.

The size of the power vacuum Lepanto created was truly stunning and ripped through the first half of the twentieth century like a scythe.

Lepanto did the unthinkable to Islam. It cut off the road to technological, economic, and territorial domination. Europe spent the next century and a half sorting itself out, violently for the most part, but with relatively little to worry about from the once mighty and ever expanding Islamic empires to its east and south.

Europe exploited the new world without the worries of Charles V or Philip II that the back door in the Mediterranean was open.

That freedom to exploit -- and exploit the Europeans did -- also gave us the advanced democracies of the U.S. and Canada. It also opened the way to Western domination of the sea lanes to India and China, with consequences that reshape our world daily.

One of the most disturbing consequences of Lepanto is the seething resentment of those whose religious conceit leads them to believe that the world must be Muslim and who, but for Lepanto, are powerless to effect their goals. From them we got 9/11. And more to come.