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Roger
Crowley.
Constantinople.
Faber,
2005.
ISBN
0571221858.
Hardback.
320pp.
Publisher's
recommended price £16.99
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.
Constantinople
is narrative history at its very best: an intense, extraordinary tale
of courage and cruelty, technological ingenuity, endurance and luck.
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