Constantinople's fall and the gate left open - - The Holy War

[papau]

http://www.calendarlive.com/printedition/calendar/cl-et-book9aug09,0,7711660.story?track=tottext

BOOK REVIEW
Constantinople's fall and the gate left open
The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West Roger Crowley Hyperion: 304 pp., $25.95
By Michael Standaert
Special to The Times

August 9, 2005

The terminal events surrounding the fall of great empires have long been studied, pondered and argued over. Edward Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" comes to mind as one of the best documentations of these eventual apocalypses, as does the more recent seven-volume series on the history of political violence by William T. Vollmann called "Rising Up and Rising Down."

But while these arduous reads likely scare away anyone but the scholarly or somewhat masochistic reader, Roger Crowley's "1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West" is an exercise in focused attention on the events surrounding the final year of the Byzantine Empire.

Though long having fallen into decay, the last days of that empire as told in "1453" may have come down to a single gate left unlocked during the height of battle. Certainly the sheer numbers of the attacking Turks, their mighty cannons, the religious zeal of jihad and their superior organization factored highly into how the battle was won. But if not for this turning point in the final attack on Constantinople — — the unlocked gate allowed the Turks to overcome the wall of Theodosius — the Byzantine Empire may have withstood. If only a short while longer.

Crowley's fascinating account of the years leading up to and the final sacking of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire reads more like lively fiction than dry recounting of historical events. The characters, led by Mehmet II, the young leader of the Ottoman Turks, and Constantine XI, the wearying 57th emperor of a weakening Byzantium, are drawn in great detail from historical source material to bring them to life on the page.
<snip>