"Roger Crowley" Topic

I've just finished his latest, Venice the winning and losing of a naval empire.

Its a cracking read, so much so that I think it worth alerting guys to him a bit more.

His first was on the siege of Constantinople, which I throughly enjoyed, his second on the Empires of the Seas covers the Ottoman Naval rise and Fall in the Eastern Med, ending with Lepanto, but featuring heavily on the Siege of Malta – absolutley brilliant bit of narrative history.

Venice is equally good – from the Sack of Constantinople until the dual blows of the developmnet of a proper Ottoman Navy, and the Portugese finding a route to India from around Africa.

if you havn't come across him yet, I'd put him up there with Ernle Bradford.

He and Tom Holland in the ancients / medieval period are two guys whose new books are well worth grabbing as soon as they hit the shops.

(sorry, not usually a fan boy)

Agreed. Great reads.

I listened to the second book in mp3 format while on the daily commute. Very interesting and well presented.

I was wandering around the local regional central library the other day, perusing the shelves for books about Portuguese imperialism in the Indian Ocean, and in the process made a mental note of a couple of interesting looking books for reading once I'm done with Peter Heather's 700 plus page epic 'Empires and Barbarians' and a few other ancients titles still in the queue. Two that stood out were 'Constantinople', about the siege of 1453, and 'Empires of the Seas', about the 16th century struggle for the Mediterranean. I didn't bother to take note of the authors' names.

Failing to find what I was looking for I resorted to the computer, and eventually found several rapturous reviews of a brand, spanking new book by Mr Crowley, whom I'd never heard of, called 'Conquerors: How the Portuguese Seized the Indian Ocean and Forged the First Global Empire'.'Great, I've hit the jackpot', I thought. Naturally the reviews mentioned in passing his previous works, equally lauded. 'Hang on a minute… those titles look familiar', I thought :-). Anyway, I borrowed them both and ordered 'Conquerors' though the inter-library loans service. I just hope I don't end up with Crowley overload before 'Conquerors' arrives.