Author: Prit Buttar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472856546
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 509
Book Description
A ground-breaking history of one of the greatest ever sieges. Masterfully brought to life by a leading expert using original Russian and German source material. '[An] excellent account.' - Richard Overy, The Telegraph This new history of the first two years of this crucial battle for the heart and soul of Russia is the first in over a decade and also the first to look comprehensively at the wider military strategies of both sides. At a huge cost, the Red Army and the civilian population of Leningrad ultimately endured a bitter 900-day siege, struggling against constant bombing, shelling, and starvation. Throughout the siege, Soviet forces tried to break the German lines and restore contact with the garrison. To Besiege a City charts the first of these offensives which began in January 1942 and was followed by repeated assaults. Acclaimed Eastern Front historian Prit Buttar details how although the Red Army suffered huge casualties in the swampy and forested terrain, the German infantry divisions were also steadily eroded. Indeed, by keeping control of parts of the shores of Lake Ladoga, the Soviet Union was able to sustain Leningrad through the winters of the siege via the 'road of life', constructed across the frozen lake. This epic history details the dramatic race to create the road across the ice and first-hand accounts from both Soviet and German soldiers, many never previously translated, bring the horrific series of battles and assaults to life. Ultimately the determination of the defenders to hold out during this first phase of the siege and the desperate attempts to break it became a hugely significant part of Russian wartime history. The echoes of the battle persist to this day helping to define both a country and its politics. There is no better time to fully understand this history and To Besiege a City is the most comprehensive account to date.
To Besiege a City
Author: Prit Buttar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472856546
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 509
Book Description
A ground-breaking history of one of the greatest ever sieges. Masterfully brought to life by a leading expert using original Russian and German source material. '[An] excellent account.' - Richard Overy, The Telegraph This new history of the first two years of this crucial battle for the heart and soul of Russia is the first in over a decade and also the first to look comprehensively at the wider military strategies of both sides. At a huge cost, the Red Army and the civilian population of Leningrad ultimately endured a bitter 900-day siege, struggling against constant bombing, shelling, and starvation. Throughout the siege, Soviet forces tried to break the German lines and restore contact with the garrison. To Besiege a City charts the first of these offensives which began in January 1942 and was followed by repeated assaults. Acclaimed Eastern Front historian Prit Buttar details how although the Red Army suffered huge casualties in the swampy and forested terrain, the German infantry divisions were also steadily eroded. Indeed, by keeping control of parts of the shores of Lake Ladoga, the Soviet Union was able to sustain Leningrad through the winters of the siege via the 'road of life', constructed across the frozen lake. This epic history details the dramatic race to create the road across the ice and first-hand accounts from both Soviet and German soldiers, many never previously translated, bring the horrific series of battles and assaults to life. Ultimately the determination of the defenders to hold out during this first phase of the siege and the desperate attempts to break it became a hugely significant part of Russian wartime history. The echoes of the battle persist to this day helping to define both a country and its politics. There is no better time to fully understand this history and To Besiege a City is the most comprehensive account to date.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472856546
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 509
Book Description
A ground-breaking history of one of the greatest ever sieges. Masterfully brought to life by a leading expert using original Russian and German source material. '[An] excellent account.' - Richard Overy, The Telegraph This new history of the first two years of this crucial battle for the heart and soul of Russia is the first in over a decade and also the first to look comprehensively at the wider military strategies of both sides. At a huge cost, the Red Army and the civilian population of Leningrad ultimately endured a bitter 900-day siege, struggling against constant bombing, shelling, and starvation. Throughout the siege, Soviet forces tried to break the German lines and restore contact with the garrison. To Besiege a City charts the first of these offensives which began in January 1942 and was followed by repeated assaults. Acclaimed Eastern Front historian Prit Buttar details how although the Red Army suffered huge casualties in the swampy and forested terrain, the German infantry divisions were also steadily eroded. Indeed, by keeping control of parts of the shores of Lake Ladoga, the Soviet Union was able to sustain Leningrad through the winters of the siege via the 'road of life', constructed across the frozen lake. This epic history details the dramatic race to create the road across the ice and first-hand accounts from both Soviet and German soldiers, many never previously translated, bring the horrific series of battles and assaults to life. Ultimately the determination of the defenders to hold out during this first phase of the siege and the desperate attempts to break it became a hugely significant part of Russian wartime history. The echoes of the battle persist to this day helping to define both a country and its politics. There is no better time to fully understand this history and To Besiege a City is the most comprehensive account to date.
The Besieged City
Author: Clarice Lispector
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 014198953X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
'One of the hidden geniuses of the twentieth century' Colm Tóibín 'She suddenly leaned toward the mirror and sought the loveliest way to see herself' Lucrécia Neves is vain, unreflective, insolently superficial, almost mute. She may have no inner life at all. As she morphs from small-town girl to worldly wife of a rich man, and her small home town surrenders to the forces of progress, Lucrécia seeks perfection: to be an object, serene, smooth, beyond the burden of words or even thought itself. A book that obsessed its author, The Besieged City is unlike any other work in Lispector's canon: a story of transformation, of what it means to see and to be seen.
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 014198953X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 180
Book Description
'One of the hidden geniuses of the twentieth century' Colm Tóibín 'She suddenly leaned toward the mirror and sought the loveliest way to see herself' Lucrécia Neves is vain, unreflective, insolently superficial, almost mute. She may have no inner life at all. As she morphs from small-town girl to worldly wife of a rich man, and her small home town surrenders to the forces of progress, Lucrécia seeks perfection: to be an object, serene, smooth, beyond the burden of words or even thought itself. A book that obsessed its author, The Besieged City is unlike any other work in Lispector's canon: a story of transformation, of what it means to see and to be seen.
Fortress Besieged (New Directions Classic)
Author: Qian Zhongshu
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 081122354X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 420
Book Description
The greatest Chinese novel of the twentieth century, Fortress Besieged is a classic of world literature, a masterpiece of parodic fiction that plays with Western literary traditions, philosophy, and middle-class Chinese society in the Republican era. Set on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War, our hapless hero Fang Hung-chien (á la Emma Bovary), with no particular goal in life and with a bogus degree from a fake American university in hand, returns home to Shanghai. On the French liner home, he meets two Chinese beauties, Miss Su and Miss Pao. Qian writes, "With Miss Pao it wasn't a matter of heart or soul. She hadn't any change of heart, since she didn't have a heart." In a sort of painful comedy, Fang obtains a teaching post at a newly established university where the effete pseudo-intellectuals he encounters in academia become the butt of Qian's merciless satire. Soon Fang is trapped into a marriage of Nabokovian proportions of distress and absurdity. Recalling Fielding's Tom Jones in its farcical litany of misadventures and Flaubert's "style indirect libre," Fortress Besieged is its own unique feast of delights.
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 081122354X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 420
Book Description
The greatest Chinese novel of the twentieth century, Fortress Besieged is a classic of world literature, a masterpiece of parodic fiction that plays with Western literary traditions, philosophy, and middle-class Chinese society in the Republican era. Set on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War, our hapless hero Fang Hung-chien (á la Emma Bovary), with no particular goal in life and with a bogus degree from a fake American university in hand, returns home to Shanghai. On the French liner home, he meets two Chinese beauties, Miss Su and Miss Pao. Qian writes, "With Miss Pao it wasn't a matter of heart or soul. She hadn't any change of heart, since she didn't have a heart." In a sort of painful comedy, Fang obtains a teaching post at a newly established university where the effete pseudo-intellectuals he encounters in academia become the butt of Qian's merciless satire. Soon Fang is trapped into a marriage of Nabokovian proportions of distress and absurdity. Recalling Fielding's Tom Jones in its farcical litany of misadventures and Flaubert's "style indirect libre," Fortress Besieged is its own unique feast of delights.
Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City
Author: K. J. Parker
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 0316270806
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
K. J. Parker's new novel is the remarkable tale of the siege of a walled city, and the even more remarkable man who had to defend it. A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all. To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge-building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job. Sixteen Ways To Defend a Walled City is the story of Orhan, son of Siyyah Doctus Felix Praeclarissimus, and his history of the Great Siege, written down so that the deeds and sufferings of great men may never be forgotten.
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 0316270806
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 319
Book Description
K. J. Parker's new novel is the remarkable tale of the siege of a walled city, and the even more remarkable man who had to defend it. A siege is approaching, and the city has little time to prepare. The people have no food and no weapons, and the enemy has sworn to slaughter them all. To save the city will take a miracle, but what it has is Orhan. A colonel of engineers, Orhan has far more experience with bridge-building than battles, is a cheat and a liar, and has a serious problem with authority. He is, in other words, perfect for the job. Sixteen Ways To Defend a Walled City is the story of Orhan, son of Siyyah Doctus Felix Praeclarissimus, and his history of the Great Siege, written down so that the deeds and sufferings of great men may never be forgotten.
Besiege Me
Author: Nicholas Wong
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781934819944
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 80
Book Description
Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. A new collection six years after Nicholas Wong won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, BESIEGE ME opens with a timely mocking tone that confronts the tension between China and Hong Kong. Poems in the book speak queerly of urban existences crushed by political and economic powers--"What cities & bodies deny a sometime-crisis, / not knowing they're a series of which?" Behind the portrayals of the speaker, his parents, his home city, and domestic migrant workers there, the collection boldly outlines the vulnerability of entrapment and its masochistic pleasures. BESIEGE ME seeks for a redefinition of transcultural poetics with its linguistic playfulness.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781934819944
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 80
Book Description
Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. A new collection six years after Nicholas Wong won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, BESIEGE ME opens with a timely mocking tone that confronts the tension between China and Hong Kong. Poems in the book speak queerly of urban existences crushed by political and economic powers--"What cities & bodies deny a sometime-crisis, / not knowing they're a series of which?" Behind the portrayals of the speaker, his parents, his home city, and domestic migrant workers there, the collection boldly outlines the vulnerability of entrapment and its masochistic pleasures. BESIEGE ME seeks for a redefinition of transcultural poetics with its linguistic playfulness.
Jerusalem Besieged
Author: Eric H. Cline
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472025376
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
"Jerusalem Besieged is a fascinating account of how and why a baffling array of peoples, ideologies, and religions have fought for some four thousand years over a city without either great wealth, size, or strategic importance. Cline guides us through the baffling, but always bloody, array of Jewish, Roman, Moslem, Crusader, Ottoman, Western, Arab, and Israeli fights for possession of such a symbolic prize in a manner that is both scholarly and engaging." -Victor Davis Hanson, Stanford University; author of The Other Greeks and Carnage and Culture "A beautifully lucid presentation of four thousand years of history in a single volume. Cline writes primarily as an archaeologist-avoiding polemic and offering evidence for any religious claims-yet he has also incorporated much journalistic material into this study. Jerusalem Besieged will enlighten anyone interested in the history of military conflict in and around Jerusalem." -Col. Rose Mary Sheldon, Virginia Military Institute "This groundbreaking study offers a fascinating synthesis of Jerusalem's military history from its first occupation into the modern era. Cline amply deploys primary source material to investigate assaults on Jerusalem of every sort, starting at the dawn of recorded history. Jerusalem Besieged is invaluable for framing the contemporary situation in the Middle East in the context of a very long and pertinent history." -Baruch Halpern, Pennsylvania State University A sweeping history of four thousand years of struggle for control of one city "[An] absorbing account of archaeological history, from the ancient Israelites' first conquest to today's second intifada. Cline clearly lays out the fascinating history behind the conflicts." -USA Today "A pleasure to read, this work makes this important but complicated subject fascinating." -Jewish Book World "Jerusalem Besieged is a fascinating account of how and why a baffling array of peoples, ideologies, and religions have fought for some four thousand years over a city without either great wealth, size, or strategic importance. Cline guides us through the baffling, but always bloody, array of Jewish, Roman, Moslem, Crusader, Ottoman, Western, Arab, and Israeli fights for possession of such a symbolic prize in a manner that is both scholarly and engaging." -Victor Davis Hanson, Stanford University; author of The Other Greeks and Carnage and Culture
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472025376
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
"Jerusalem Besieged is a fascinating account of how and why a baffling array of peoples, ideologies, and religions have fought for some four thousand years over a city without either great wealth, size, or strategic importance. Cline guides us through the baffling, but always bloody, array of Jewish, Roman, Moslem, Crusader, Ottoman, Western, Arab, and Israeli fights for possession of such a symbolic prize in a manner that is both scholarly and engaging." -Victor Davis Hanson, Stanford University; author of The Other Greeks and Carnage and Culture "A beautifully lucid presentation of four thousand years of history in a single volume. Cline writes primarily as an archaeologist-avoiding polemic and offering evidence for any religious claims-yet he has also incorporated much journalistic material into this study. Jerusalem Besieged will enlighten anyone interested in the history of military conflict in and around Jerusalem." -Col. Rose Mary Sheldon, Virginia Military Institute "This groundbreaking study offers a fascinating synthesis of Jerusalem's military history from its first occupation into the modern era. Cline amply deploys primary source material to investigate assaults on Jerusalem of every sort, starting at the dawn of recorded history. Jerusalem Besieged is invaluable for framing the contemporary situation in the Middle East in the context of a very long and pertinent history." -Baruch Halpern, Pennsylvania State University A sweeping history of four thousand years of struggle for control of one city "[An] absorbing account of archaeological history, from the ancient Israelites' first conquest to today's second intifada. Cline clearly lays out the fascinating history behind the conflicts." -USA Today "A pleasure to read, this work makes this important but complicated subject fascinating." -Jewish Book World "Jerusalem Besieged is a fascinating account of how and why a baffling array of peoples, ideologies, and religions have fought for some four thousand years over a city without either great wealth, size, or strategic importance. Cline guides us through the baffling, but always bloody, array of Jewish, Roman, Moslem, Crusader, Ottoman, Western, Arab, and Israeli fights for possession of such a symbolic prize in a manner that is both scholarly and engaging." -Victor Davis Hanson, Stanford University; author of The Other Greeks and Carnage and Culture
?????? ??????
Author: Michael Carasik
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0827609396
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
For the first time, Miqra'ot Gedolot is available in an accessible English edition. First published 500 years ago as the "Rabbinic Bible," the biblical commentaries known as the Miqra'ot Gedolot have inspired and educated generations of Hebrew readers. With this edition, the voices of Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Nahmanides, Rashbam, and other medieval commentators come alive once more, speaking in a contemporary English translation annotated and explicated for lay readers. Each page of The Commentators' Bible contains several Hebrew verses from the book of Exodus, surrounded by both the 1917 and 1985 JPS translations and new English translations of the major commentators. This large-format volume is beautifully designed for ease of navigation among the many elements on each page, including explanatory notes and selected additional comments from the works of Bekhor Shor, Hizkuni, Abarbanel, Sforno, Gersonides, and others. - Publisher.
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0827609396
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 294
Book Description
For the first time, Miqra'ot Gedolot is available in an accessible English edition. First published 500 years ago as the "Rabbinic Bible," the biblical commentaries known as the Miqra'ot Gedolot have inspired and educated generations of Hebrew readers. With this edition, the voices of Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Nahmanides, Rashbam, and other medieval commentators come alive once more, speaking in a contemporary English translation annotated and explicated for lay readers. Each page of The Commentators' Bible contains several Hebrew verses from the book of Exodus, surrounded by both the 1917 and 1985 JPS translations and new English translations of the major commentators. This large-format volume is beautifully designed for ease of navigation among the many elements on each page, including explanatory notes and selected additional comments from the works of Bekhor Shor, Hizkuni, Abarbanel, Sforno, Gersonides, and others. - Publisher.
Battleground Prussia
Author: Prit Buttar
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1780964641
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 510
Book Description
An engrossing history of the last year of the Second World War, charting the battles fought between the Soviet Red Army and the Nazis across German soil. The terrible months between the arrival of the Red Army on German soil and the final collapse of Hitler's regime were like no other in the Second World War. The Soviet Army's intent to take revenge for the horror that the Nazis had wreaked on their people produced a conflict of implacable brutality in which millions perished. From the great battles that marked the Soviet conquest of East and West Prussia to the final surrender in the Vistula estuary, this book recounts in chilling detail the desperate struggle of soldiers and civilians alike. These brutal campaigns are brought vividly to life by a combination of previously untold testimony and astute strategic analysis recognising a conflict of unprecedented horror and suffering.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1780964641
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 510
Book Description
An engrossing history of the last year of the Second World War, charting the battles fought between the Soviet Red Army and the Nazis across German soil. The terrible months between the arrival of the Red Army on German soil and the final collapse of Hitler's regime were like no other in the Second World War. The Soviet Army's intent to take revenge for the horror that the Nazis had wreaked on their people produced a conflict of implacable brutality in which millions perished. From the great battles that marked the Soviet conquest of East and West Prussia to the final surrender in the Vistula estuary, this book recounts in chilling detail the desperate struggle of soldiers and civilians alike. These brutal campaigns are brought vividly to life by a combination of previously untold testimony and astute strategic analysis recognising a conflict of unprecedented horror and suffering.
Besieged
Author:
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 8184759169
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 662
Book Description
Translated by Mahmood Farooqui, with notes on the Mutiny Papers and governance in Delhi 1857 by the translator When Delhi lay under siege for five harrowing months in the summer of 1857, the people of the city described the events as ghadar: a time of turbulence. Resources within the besieged city fell dangerously low and locals found the rebelling sepoys presence and the increased levies insufferable. Nonetheless, an extraordinary effort was launched by the government of Bahadur Shah Zafar to fight the British. Thousands of labourers and tonnes of materials were mobilized, funds were gathered, the police monitored food prices and a functioning bureaucracy was vigilantly maintained right until the walled city s fall. Then, as Delhi was transformed by the victorious British, these everyday sacrifices and the efforts of thousands of people to save their country were lost forever. In this groundbreaking work, Mahmood Farooqui presents the first extensive translations into English of the Mutiny Papers documents dating from Delhi s 1857 siege, originally written in Persian and Shikastah Urdu. The translations include such fascinating pieces as the constitution of the Court of Mutineers, letters from soldiers threatening to leave Delhi if they were not paid their salaries, complaints to the police about unruly soldiers, and reports of troublesome courtesans, spies, faqirs, doctors, volunteers and harassed policemen. Shifting focus away from the conventional understanding of the events of 1857, these translations return ordinary and anonymous men and women back into the history of 1857. Besieged offers a view of how the rebel government of Delhi organized the essential requirements of war food and labour, soldiers salaries, arms and ammunition but more than that, this deeply evocative book reveals the hopes, beliefs and failures of a people who lived through the tragic end of an era.
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 8184759169
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 662
Book Description
Translated by Mahmood Farooqui, with notes on the Mutiny Papers and governance in Delhi 1857 by the translator When Delhi lay under siege for five harrowing months in the summer of 1857, the people of the city described the events as ghadar: a time of turbulence. Resources within the besieged city fell dangerously low and locals found the rebelling sepoys presence and the increased levies insufferable. Nonetheless, an extraordinary effort was launched by the government of Bahadur Shah Zafar to fight the British. Thousands of labourers and tonnes of materials were mobilized, funds were gathered, the police monitored food prices and a functioning bureaucracy was vigilantly maintained right until the walled city s fall. Then, as Delhi was transformed by the victorious British, these everyday sacrifices and the efforts of thousands of people to save their country were lost forever. In this groundbreaking work, Mahmood Farooqui presents the first extensive translations into English of the Mutiny Papers documents dating from Delhi s 1857 siege, originally written in Persian and Shikastah Urdu. The translations include such fascinating pieces as the constitution of the Court of Mutineers, letters from soldiers threatening to leave Delhi if they were not paid their salaries, complaints to the police about unruly soldiers, and reports of troublesome courtesans, spies, faqirs, doctors, volunteers and harassed policemen. Shifting focus away from the conventional understanding of the events of 1857, these translations return ordinary and anonymous men and women back into the history of 1857. Besieged offers a view of how the rebel government of Delhi organized the essential requirements of war food and labour, soldiers salaries, arms and ammunition but more than that, this deeply evocative book reveals the hopes, beliefs and failures of a people who lived through the tragic end of an era.
Empires of the Sea
Author: Roger Crowley
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588367339
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 378
Book Description
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.
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588367339
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 378
Book Description
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.