Cross and crescent in the Balkans

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, one 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. David Nicolle sets the scene by explaining the background of the military, political, cultural and personal history, of the winners and the losers, plus those 'outsiders' who were increasingly drawn into the dramatic story of the rise of the Ottoman Empire.--Publisher's description.