excellent book - Rated 
excellent book. easy to read, lots of interesting details and offers a good historical context of the events.
EMPIRES OF THE SEA - Rated
Another cliff-hanger from Crowley as he tears aside the veil of a `clash of civilisations' to show the people beneath, some of whom, yes, fought for Christianity or Islam, some of whom like Hayrettin Barbarossa fought for revenge and profit as much as for the Prophet. Some like the countless thousands of galley-slaves fought to stay alive (the supply of whom stripped coastal regions and perpetuated the war in a self-feeding cycle).More realpolitik than religion, this is Pirenne's divided Mediterranean, both sides aping the defunct Roman Empire, trying to project their version of it. Starting with the siege of Rhodes and Famagusta whose commander met a gruesome end, skinned alive and the skin stuffed and dressed in finery and sent to the Sultan, this book tells the next chapter of Ottoman expansion after the Fall of Constantinople and a grim remorseless story it is.
Thematically structured into two parts, the siege of Malta and the battle of Lepanto, both presented as huge triumphs in the West, Cervantes describing Lepanto as the `greatest event witnessed by ages past, present and to come', slight setbacks in the East.
As for Malta, forget the Alamo which held out for two weeks, the fight to hold St. Elmo's fort which held out for a month would read like a pot-boiler if it were not true, down to the very end when its captain Miranda had himself tied to a chair because of his wounds and waited by the gate with his pistols and his swords for the Janissaries who stormed the building.
Lepanto where the two fleets blundered into each other, produced an apocalyptic battle that is hard to credit when reading the story in the comfort of an armchair. The rate of death, 40,000 in the first four hours, would not be equalled until WWI.
A loss which the Ottomans were able to replenish within a year, but the value of Lepanto and Malta was to show that the Ottomans could be beaten on land and at sea. The West gave up trying to reconquer the Holy Land and the Ottomans refocused on Eastern Europe where logistical overstretch and a moribund intellectual outlook eventually did for them. Both recognised the de facto split in the Mediterranean which exists to today.
Narrative history at its best. I can't wait to see what he does next.
Empires of the Sea - Rated
This is a very accessable version of a period in history I knew little about.
The narrative ebbs and flows very nicely and the author brings characters vividly to life which is no mean feat after five hundred years.
There is a lot of interest in the Tudor period at the moment and its very easy to forget that there were even more tumultuous events occuring on the same continent.
Highly recommended.
Amateur Opinion - Rated 
As a general reader for this era, this book is superb. Well written with plenty of detail, but laid out in an easy way to follow. The various rulers, their own ambitions and the interplay between them is very well presented. The battles, and the reasons for them both why they happened, or didnt, are very well explained. Read it and learn while enjoying the process.
the muezzin's call from the vatican...? - Rated
This is a brilliantly written story of the long contest between the Turk and Catholic Europe for control (or just safety) of the Mediterranean. The med is quite big, so I was dreading another book where every other paragraph begins "Meanwhile" as the focus continually shifts. I need not have worried. Crowley concentrates firmly on the basic conflict, and tells the story with remarkable brio.
The story begins with the loss of Rhodes by the Knights of St John, an event characterised by considerable bad faith and bloody savagery on both sides, which sets the tone for the rest of the conflict. Its centrepiece is the siege of Malta, real edge-of-the-seat stuff even if you know the result. (Malta was saved, but only just.) It climaxes with the battle of Lepanto, which Crowley rightly calls a close-run thing, which could have resulted in the collapse of Italy and Spain if it had gone the other way.
Crowley takes a humane view of the motivations and excesses of both sides. In his view it was the scale of carnage that led to the petering out of the conflict; loss of manpower enfeebled both sides to the point of an uneasy but durable truce. Perhaps he could have said more about ship design, about financial pressures on both sides, about the waning (perhaps?) of religious zeal, but these are mere quibbles.
The reader will be entranced by the appalling courage and bloodthirstyness of the age. Slave raiding, it seems, had as its principal purpose the recruitment of manpower to man the oars of the galleys. Death rates in battle were phenomenally high (nowhere matched until 1916). What made them do it? Why did they stop? (Selim built a new fleet in only two years after the losses of Lepanto.)
Slaving continued for another two centuries. If the first duty of the modern state is to protect its citizens, we must conclude that this was not an age of modernity. Psychologically also, the actors are far removed from us. Even the Europeans in this book seem like exotics, which only adds to the excitement.
Highly recommended, both as history and a fascinating read.
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