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Byzantium: The Decline and Fall v. 3: The Decline and Fall

Format:	Paperback 544 pages

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Synopsis

From the accession of Alexius in 1081, through the disastrous Fourth Crusade - when an army destined for the Holy Land was diverted to Constantinople by the blind, octogenarian but infinitely crafty Doge of Venice - to the painfully protracted struggle against the Ottomans, the closing centuries of the Byzantine era are rich in pathos, colour and startling reversals of fortune. The terrible siege of Constantinople in 1453 ended the empire, founded in the year 330, which Lord Norwich has devoted many years to re-creating; this volume forms the climax to an epic sequence of books.

Book details

Published
31/10/1996

Publisher
Penguin Books Ltd

ISBN
9780140114492

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UK Kirkus review

With this volume Lord Norwich completes his magnificent three-volume history of the 1123 years of the Byzantine Empire. He began the story with Byzantium: The Early Centuries and continued it with Byzantium: The Apogee. Concluding this superb narraitve, he tells of the defeat by the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071; of the Fourth Crusade - led by the octogenarian Doge of Venice - which sacked Constantinople and placed Frankish thugs on the imperial throne; and of the last great epic struggle of the Middle Ages, the futile Byzantine attempt, under Constantine XI, to hold out against the inexorable army of the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmet II until the walls of Constantinople finally crumbled on 29 May 1453. It is utterly spellbinding. (Kirkus UK)