Cross and Crescent in the Balkans

by Nicolle, David

• ISBN13: 9781844159543
• ISBN10: 184415954X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-01-19
• Publisher: Pen & Sword

Summary

This is NOT just another retelling of the Fall of Constantinople, though it does include a very fine account of that momentous event. It is the history of a quite extraordinary century and a bit which began when a tiny of force of Ottoman Turkish warriors was invited by the Christian Byzantine Emperor to cross the Dardanelles from Asia into Europe to assist him in one of the civil wars which were tearing the fast-declining Byzantine Empire apart. One hundred and eight years later the Byzantine capital of Constantinople fell to what was by then a hugely powerful and expanding empire of the Islamic Ottoman Turks, whose rulers came to see themselves as the natural and legitimate heirs of their Byzantine and indeed Roman predecessors. The book sets the scene, explains the background and tells the story, both military, political, cultural and personal, of the winners and the losers, plus those 'outsiders' who were increasingly being drawn into the dramatic story of the rise of the Ottoman Empire.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. vii
Maps	p. ix
Introduction	p. xiii
Chronology	p. xv
A Chaotic Background	p. 1
Byzantine & Balkan Complexity	p. 13
Aegean Crusaders & Naval Crusades	p. 27
Religion and the Sword	p. 35
Turks, Nomads & Peasants	p. 48
Byzantine Life & Balkin Rivalries	p. 56
The Ottomans' First European Conquests - A New Way of Life	p. 64
The Rise of Serbia & the Decline of Byzantium	p. 71
From Empire to Empire - Byzantine & Ottoman Government	p. 78
Prelude to Disaster	p. 89
Humbling the Crusaders	p. 107
The Ottomans Face Catastrophe	p. 125
The Ottomans Survive	p. 136
An Islamic Empire in Europe	p. 143
The Failed Christian Counterattack	p. 151
Vassalage & Renaissance	p. 158
The Ottomanization of Anatolia	p. 165
Mehmet Closes in on Constantinople	p. 172
Preparing for the Siege	p. 188
The Conquest of Constantinople	p. 199
Greece Falls to the Turks	p. 217
Venetians & Ottomans	p. 223
The Ottomans Fortify their Empire	p. 237
Glossary	p. 245
Further Reading	p. 251
Index	p. 254
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