Empires Of The Sea: The Final Battle For The Mediterranean, 1521-1580 (2008) - Plot & Excerpts
I read this after reading Crowley's other work City of Fortune which I found more engaging. You can see his writing style being developed slowly throughout the course of this work. His major success in these books is finding a personality or character that you can connect with throughout history. Intentionally in this work I felt a little disconnected but over the course of the work he makes more connections and by the end I felt similarly to how i felt at the end of City of Fortune. This book tells the story of the World War between the Muslim Turks and the Spanish Empire which in the 1500s were the greatest powers in the world. The story dives into the politics of Rome, Madrid, and Constantinople three of the most important cities in the world and shows the religious fervor and horrific battles that drove these nations into war. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in historical battles or the history of the crusades. I would say that it is a must read for anyone interested in European history. Overall a very enjoyable read and I will definitely check out more by this author. An excellently framed and paced history, this book has as its pillars the siege of Rhodes, the siege of Malta, and the battle of Lepanto.I've read (and played many-hours-long historical wargames) in this era quite enough, but this is the finest history that I've read of the era, as it explicated the over-riding causes and forces and linked the key events. It also showed the knife-edge upon which many of the events rested--and alluded to possible alternatives to the history we know if these pivotal events had gone another way.I'm planning to seek out more of Mr Crowley's works. I hope that I can be so fortunate as to find the same quality of counterpart in my effort to more fully understand the turmoils of the 16th century in Northern Europe.
What do You think about Empires Of The Sea: The Final Battle For The Mediterranean, 1521-1580 (2008)?
Spends too much time on the details of wounds, type of death, and gory details in general.
—15native
Well written account of the struggle for control of the Mediterranean in the 16th century.
—max
Actually made the historical events read like a political and action thriller
—Mara
