'Fast-paced and vivid narrative...a fascinating account of the rise of an empire'

Francois Soyer, BBC History Magazine

 

'In his previous studies of 15th- and 16th-century struggles between Christians and Ottomans for control of the Mediterranean, Crowley has shown a rare gift for combining compelling narrative with lightly worn academic thoroughness as well as for balancing the human with the geopolitical - qualities on display here. The story he has to tell may be a thrilling one but not every historian could tell it so thrillingly.'

Michael Prodger, Financial Times

 

'Magnificently rip-roaring history of Portugal's rise to world empire ... Conquerors is a gloriously entertaining read ... it reads like an epic, bursting with colour and excitement. Unlike many academics who have written about the age of European expansion, Crowley never wastes a syllable on post-colonial gobbledegook, but just cracks on with the action ... prodigiously entertaining book.'

Dominic Sandbrook, Sunday Times

 

'Crowley brings a gift for vivid (and gory) storytelling buttressed by a firm grasp of the political and religious dimensions of the time ... Crowley's pages burst with action ... he opens the reader's eyes to a now lost chapter in the western encounter with the lands of the East.'

The National

 

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