City of Fortune: How Venice Won and Lost a Naval Empire

Author(s): Roger Crowley

History

The rise and fall of the Venetian empire stands unrivaled for drama, intrigue, and sheer opulent majesty. In City of Fortune, Roger Crowley, acclaimed historian and New York Times bestselling author of Empires of the Sea, applies his narrative skill to chronicling the astounding five-hundred-year voyage of Venice to the pinnacle of power.
 
Tracing the full arc of the Venetian imperial saga for the first time, City of Fortune is framed around two of the great collisions of world history: the ill-fated Fourth Crusade, which culminated in the sacking of Constantinople and the carve-up of the Byzantine Empire in 1204, and the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499-1503, which saw the Ottoman Turks supplant the Venetians as the preeminent naval power in the Mediterranean. In between were three centuries of Venetian maritime dominance--years of plunder and plague, conquest and piracy--during which a tiny city of "lagoon dwellers" grew into the richest place on earth.
 
Drawing on firsthand accounts of pitched sea battles, skillful negotiations, and diplomatic maneuvers, Crowley paints a vivid picture of this avaricious, enterprising people and the bountiful lands that came under their dominion. Defiant of emperors, indifferent to popes, the Venetians saw themselves as reluctant freebooters, compelled to take to the open seas "because we cannot live otherwise and know not how except by trade." From the opening of the spice routes to the clash between Christianity and Islam, Venice played a leading role in the defining conflicts of its time--the reverberations of which are still being felt today. Only an author with Roger Crowley's deep knowledge of post-Crusade history could put these iconic events into their proper context.
 
Epic in scope, magisterial in its understanding of the period, City of Fortune is narrative history at its most engrossing.

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From the prize-winning author of Empires of the Sea comes an epic work of narrative maritime history.

Praise for "City of Fortune" "Crowley...writes with a racy briskness that lifts sea battles and sieges off the page, so much so that at times his sentences seem in danger of bursting their seams" -- "New York Times Book Review" "Roger Crowley chronicles the peak of Venice's past glory with Wordsworthian sympathy, supplemented by impressive learning and infectious enthusiasm." -- W"all Street Journal" 'Venice receives a stirring account from British historian Crowley...An action-packed political and military history." -- "Kirkus Reviews" Praise for Roger Crowley's "Empires of the Sea" "Crowley has an astonishing gift for narration; his account is as exciting as any thriller."--John Julius Norwich, "The Wall Street Journal" "Crowley's page-turner history . . . deserves to be this [season's] most recommended nonfiction book. . . . Rich in character, action, surprise, what transpired in those few desperate weeks is one of history's best and most thrilling stories."--"The Dallas Morning News" "[Crowley] offers exquisitely delicate insights and undulating descriptive passages. Yet in his descriptions of the battles, his prose is so taut and tense, it is impossible not to be caught up in the harrowing action."--"The Christian Science Monitor" "A masterly narrative that captures the religious fervor, brutality and mayhem of this intensive contest."--"Kirkus Reviews" (starred review)"Gripping . . . This is a rare combination of a history book that reads with the detail, insight and pace of a novel."--"The Tampa Tribune"

Roger Crowley read English at Cambridge before going to live in Istanbul. His first book, Constantinople was published in 2005 and was followed by Empires of the Sea, which was chosen as the Sunday Times History Book of the Year in 2008.

General Fields

  • : 9780571245956
  • : Faber & Faber, Limited
  • : Faber & Faber, Limited
  • : 0.342
  • : July 2012
  • : 198mm X 126mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : September 2012
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Roger Crowley
  • : Paperback
  • : Main
  • : en
  • : 945.3
  • : 405
  • : Illustrations, maps