From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Capponi, a highly regarded Italian Renaissance scholar with a focus on military history lives up to his reputation in his first major U.S. publication. The battle of Lepanto, fought in 1571, was both one of history's significant naval engagements and a watershed in the long war between Christians and Muslims. To pierce its penumbra of myths and legends, Capponi returns to the original archival and printed sources to construct this fresh, multilayered analysis. On one level Lepanto was a victory for the Western technology that would decide so many battles in the next four centuries. The Christian fleet made better use of gunpowder weapons and had a trump card in their galleasses—galleys converted into gunships, whose heavy artillery allowed Christian seamen to prevent the Ottomans from utilizing their superiority in boarding tactics. Lepanto was also a psychological victory: a ramshackle alliance of Christian states thrashed an Ottoman Empire at the peak of its power and confidence, preventing the Ottomans from dominating the Mediterranean as before. The unexpected outcome sharpened the still-enduring struggle between Christianity and Islam, making it correspondingly difficult for the Muslim world to accept the West taking an increasing lead in military, scientific and economic matters. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Booklist
By the middle of the sixteenth century, Islam, under the banner of the Ottoman Turks, was ascendant in North Africa, Asia Minor, and most of the eastern Mediterranean. With their powerful navy as a springboard, the Turks were poised to advance further west. On October 7, 1571, the Ottoman fleet met a combined Christian fleet called the Holy League off the coast of mainland Greece. The daylong battle resulted in an overwhelming defeat of the Ottomans, the first significant defeat of Ottoman forces by Europeans, which shattered the aura of invincibility that had surrounded them. Some historians have suggested the event was the beginning of the long decline that led to the Ottoman Empire being designated as the "sick man of Europe." Capponi, a military and Renaissance historian, tells about this seminal battle with great attention to detail as well as superb insight into the cultural differences between the adversaries. He makes effective use of primary sources, including Miguel de Cervantes, who was wounded in the battle; the result is an absorbing and even thrilling account. Jay Freeman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.
