The Grand Turk : Sultan Mehmet II - Conqueror of Constantinople, Master of an Empire and Lord of Two Seas

Freely, John

ISBN 10: 1845117042 / ISBN 13: 9781845117047

Editore: I.B. Tauris, London / New York, 2009

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24x16cm, xvii,265,(8)pp ontents: Prologue: Portrait of a Sultan -- 1. Sons of Osman -- 2. Boy Sultan -- 3. Conquest of Constantinople -- 4. Istanbul, Capital of the Ottoman Empire -- 5. Europe in Terror -- 6. War with Venice -- 7. House of Felicity -- 8. Renaissance Court in Istanbul -- 9. Conquest of Negroponte -- 10. Victory over the White Sheep -- 11. Conquest of the Crimea and Albania -- 12. Siege of Rhodes -- 13. Capture of Otranto -- 14. Death of the Conqueror -- 15. Sons of the Conqueror -- 16. Tide of Conquest Turns --17. Conqueror s City -- Ottoman Dynasty. Codice articolo 023621

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Titolo: The Grand Turk : Sultan Mehmet II - ...

Casa editrice: I.B. Tauris, London / New York

Data di pubblicazione: 2009

Legatura: orig. boards

Illustratore: 8pp photoplates.

Condizione: Minor wear. VG., dustwrapper.

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto:

Sultan Mehmet II, the Grand Turk, known to his countrymen as Fatih, 'the Conqueror', and to much of Europe as 'the present Terror of the World', was once the most feared and powerful ruler in the world. The seventh of his line to rule the Ottoman Turks, Mehmet was barely 21 when he conquered Byzantine Constantinople, which became Istanbul and the capital of his mighty empire. Mehmet reigned for 30 years, during which time his armies extended the borders of his empire halfway across Asia Minor and as far into Europe as Hungary and Italy. Three popes called for crusades against him as Christian Europe came face to face with a new Muslim empire.Mehmet himself was an enigmatic figure. Revered by the Turks and seen as a cruel and brutal tyrant by the west, he was a brilliant military leader but also a renaissance prince who had in his court Persian and Turkish poets, Arab and Greek astronomers and Italian scholars and artists. In this, the first biography of Mehmet for 30 years, John Freely vividly brings to life the world in which Mehmet lived and illuminates the man behind the myths, a figure who dominated both East and West from his palace above the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, where an inscription still hails him as, 'Sultan of the two seas, shadow of God in the two worlds, God's servant between the two horizons, hero of the water and the land, conqueror of the stronghold of Constantinople."

Recensione:

'Whenever I'm asked to recommend a book about Turkey, I reply, 'Anything by John Freely'. This latest work is a marvellous example of Freely's ability to convey the sweep of history by telling us about the outsized characters who shaped it. Mehmet the Conqueror, who captured Constantinople at the age of 21 and went on to reshape the world, has never seemed as alive as he does on these pages.' --Stephen Kinzer, former New York Times correspondent and author of 'Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds'

'To do justice to a figure as colorful and complicated as Mehmed the Conqueror, one has to combine the ability of a master story teller with an intimate knowledge of Istanbul (Constantinople), the city Mehmed first conquered and then spend the rest of his life rebuilding and repopulating. The readers of this book are fortunate that John Freely possesses both these traits.' --Heath W. Lowry, Atatürk Professor of Ottoman & Modern Turkish Studies, Princeton University