This review is dedicated to the memory of Ken Wright
Much
has been written about the medieval Mediterranean world recently.
In The Barbary Corsairs: Warfare in the Mediterranean, 1480-1580 (2003),
French author Jacques Heers concentrates
on the basin's
"Golden Age of Piracy” between the fall of Constantinople
and the Spanish Armada. While journalist Stephen O'Shea, in Sea
of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Medieval Mediterranean World (2006),
focuses on seven military battles'Yarmuk (A.D. 636),
Poitiers (732), Manzikert (1071), Hattin (1187),
Las Navas de Tolosa (1212),
Constantinople (1453), and Malta (1565)'between (embattled)
Christianity and (expanding) Islam over the inheritance of the Greco-Roman
world. Yet it is the book published in between those two works, Robert
C. Davis', Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery
in the Mediterranean, The Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800 (2004),
that most, if not all, medievalists will be familiar with given the
academic fallout caused by the unorthodox methodology Davis used
to calculate the "other” slavery.
It
is knowledge of two other books, however, The Middle Sea: A
History of the Mediterranean (2007) by John Julius Norwich
and Pirates of Barbary: Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in
17th-century Mediterranean (2010) by Adrian Tinniswood,
that will enable readers to appreciate just how fine a book Empires
of the Sea: The Final Battle for the Mediterranean, 1521-1580 is.
I say this for the simple reason that, like Norwich, Roger Crowley
acts as a tour guide on an unforgettable journey and, much like Tinniswood,
pens what is an expertly-paced narrative. Unlike the latter, though,
Crowley cannot be accused of producing an Anglocentric narrative'what
Crowley kindly refers to as "an English perspective” in
his review'of what is quintessentially a Mediterranean tale.
If
anything, critics might point out that Crowley overlooks England
(and they would certainly have a point). Notwithstanding the frequent
but fleeting references (pp. 10, 18, 22, 24, 25, 50, 97, 110, 156,
165, 232, 271, 289, 294
& 297), there is no talk of English raids on Spanish outposts
in the Caribbean or, more precisely, the effect on Madrid's
Mediterranean campaigns that Drake's disrupting of Indies' galleon
traffic caused. Such information would have been useful since not
only did the English sense of empire grow significantly after the
Reformation, but Crowley specifically says that the
"New World altered the course of events in the old.” (p.62)
This is more than sufficiently canceled out, however, with talk of
Ptolemy's map: so-called new Ptolemaic maps created in the
same style and books containing the navigational charts, such as
the one written by "geographically curious Turkish navigator” Piri Reis and presented to Sultan Suleiman as a "blueprint
for naval wars” (p.40), were intended for every day use.
Empires
of the Sea is
a natural continuation of Crowley's previous book, Constantinople:
The Last Great Siege (2005). It picks up the story
of the Ottoman adventure into the Mediterranean in 1520 when Mehmet II's great-grandson,
Suleiman the Magnificent, driven by the dream of taking Rome
and inheriting Caesar's mantle (p.52), attacked Rhodes
and follows it through to the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the
end of this period of "full-blown sea warfare” (p.57).
In the middle of both this period and this sea lies Malta, an
island
"simply too central, too strategic and too troublesome to be
ignored indefinitely.” (p.98)
"Part
II: Epicentre: The Battle for Malta” is
the centerpiece and is easily the most gripping section of the
equally-weighted book. (If Hollywood is looking for another epic,
this battle certainly has all the required ingredients with 600
Knights of St. John against an Ottoman army of around of 30,000.)
It is no exaggeration, either, to say that pages 91-195 are so
riveting that they demand a second reading given the larger-than-life
personalities of Jean de la Valette,
Captain Miranda, and an Italian traitor. Yet it must also be said
that Crowley illustrates the drama of those four scorching summer
months most vividly, when all that stood between the Turks from
taking St Elmo was a last-minute ravelin that
protected the garrison's exposed outpost and prayers from
Protestant England. Needless to say, though, many more prayers
were required since, "a decisive clash for control of the
centre of the world still awaited.” (p.207)
For
some strange reason, Empires of the Seas was one of 37 tomes
to have featured on a 2008 "Summer Reading List” circulated
to all 195 British Conservative Members of Parliament in preparation
for the new Cameron government. But despite its questionable relevance,
the book remained a popular choice. The reason is a simple one:
Crowley provides a popular history of the hostility between the
Crescent and the Cross. To be sure, the author's tendency
to compare historical events with more contemporary times'such
as the moment Ottomans and Christians spoke during the Siege of
Malta resembling
"footballs kicked into no-man's-land” (p.182),
Don Juan's crushing of the Morisco revolt prefiguring the "horror of Goya's firing squads” (p.210), and talk of Lepanto
being
"Europe's Trafalgar” (p.288)'will put general
readers at ease (though perhaps enflame professional historians–ed.).
What is more, the inclusion of black and white sketches (which adorn
more than 40 pages) together with 16 illustrations and three maps
make this a must-have for members of the public as well as MPs. You
cannot fault the publisher, either, for not curtailing the author's
overuse of semicolons given that I found but a single publishing
error (p.217).
Crowley's
use of original sources is admirable (you need only count the many
first-person accounts of fighting featured in the bibliography).
Thanks to the invention of the printing press at the time, the
author is able to draw on (Italian if not Ottoman) eye-witness
accounts which he brings to life wonderfully well. It is not only
for his narrative prowess that the author deserves considerable
praise, however, but also for his even-handed approach toward the
nightmarish horrors suffered by Christians and Muslims alike. Rest
assured, then, this is neither an anti-Muslim nor an anti-Christian
book (and despite it being a tale of western disunity, it does
not call for a united response to radical Islam today). If anything,
it is an anti-war book.
At
no time do you feel Empires of the Seas is in danger of
being swamped by the wealth of material. Make no mistake about
it, Crowley's thesis is a tight one. And this enables him
to create such a mood of suspense that even readers who know the
result of a particular skirmish, set piece, or siege will find
that this is as edge-of-the-seat as it gets. To paraphrase the
author, Crowley is a repository of knowledge about the Mediterranean
basin (p.253). It may be "a short, general work” but Empires
of the Seas remains a masterly account of the sixteenth-century
struggle for mastery of the Mediterranean (p.325).