Empires of the Sea

Reviews

‘I have already mentioned how well Mr. Crowley tells a story; but he does much more than that. His analyses of the political and economic background to the events he describes so brilliantly are intelligent and perceptive, and he is a superb portraitist. We are left with clear and unforgettable pictures of all sorts of figures from this great drama...I enjoyed every page of Empires of the Sea and was sorry indeed when I turned the last one.
John Julius Norwich, The Wall Street Journal

‘ This magnificent new narrative history. ’
The Sunday Times

‘ The sieges of Malta and Famagusta were spectacularly violent affairs and are described to dazzling effect by Crowley...This is a first-class narrative history...Crowley is just as scintillating when outlining the complex geopolitics of the 16th-century Mediterranean as when he is cataloguing the awful wounds and injuries sustained in the various battles.’
The Daily Telegraph

‘This is narrative history at its most gripping...A publisher's adage used to say that the market can take a new biography of Napoleon every five years; and the siege of Malta is such a good story, it could be told more often than that. But I doubt whether it will receive as powerful a telling as this one for many years to come.'
Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph

‘Exciting re-creation of the epic mid-16thcentury struggle between the encroaching Ottoman Empire and the beleagured Christian Europeans.’
Kirkus Review

‘Masterfully synthesizing primary and secondary material, he vividly reconstructs the great battles, Malta and Lepanto...Crowley recreates the fighting and the brutality in page-turning prose that never sacrifices accuracy for color.’
Publishers Weekly

‘Empires of the Sea confirms Crowley as master of the Mediterranean between 1521 and 1580, marshaling his understanding of men and tides as brilliantly as any of the Ottoman corsairs or crusading sea-dogs he writes about so knowledgeably and enjoyably...Roger Crowley builds towards the great battle with consummate dexterity. From Rhodes to Malta, he handles the great set-piece battles with the attention to detail and grasp of strategy he displayed so brilliantly in Constantinople. Empires of the Sea is an exciting book, in which you feel the scorch of the arquebus, the perils of the sea and the frustrations of an Ottoman pasha or a Pope as vividly as the springs in your comfortable armchair.’
Jason Goodwin, Literary Review

‘Literary talent of a high order...It can be read as you might read Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels, and the momentum would easily carry you through a plane journey. But it is also a work with serious research behind it, and a contribution to quite an important and even topical subject.’
Norman Stone, The Guardian