Empires of the sea : the siege of Malta, the battle of Lepanto, and the contest for the center of the world

In 1521, Suleiman the Magnificent, Muslim ruler of the Ottoman Empire, dispatched an invasion fleet to the Christian island of Rhodes. This would prove to be the opening shot in an epic clash 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 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. 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. Empires of the Sea is a story of extraordinary color and incident, and provides a crucial context for our own clash of civilizations.

Set during the height of the Ottoman Empire and with Christendom weakened and vulnerable, this is the story of the fifty-year battle for domination of the Mediterranean, centered around the titanic battles of Rhodes, Malta, and Lepanto—-three of the most dramatic and decisive battles in world history.

The Barnes & Noble Review

Europe has witnessed some bitter conflicts in its time, but for sheer savagery and blind religious fervour, few can match the 16th-century struggle for the mastery of the Mediterranean between the Ottoman Turks and the loose association of Christian states sheltering under the Hapsburg flag. For nearly 60 years, between 1521 and 1580, these two implacable enemies, fired by the certainty of their spiritual calling and driven by the absolute otherness of their foes, slugged it out for strategic supremacy of the sea, matching atrocity with atrocity as they searched for the blow that would floor their opponent.

A thrilling account of the brutal decades-long battle between Christendom and Islam for the soul of Europe. 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.