Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World info
Empires of the Sea tells the story of the fifty-year world war between Islam and Christianity for the Mediterranean: one of the fiercest and most influential contests in European history. It traces events from the appearance on the world stage of Suleiman the Magnificent—the legendary ruler of the Ottoman Empire—through "the years of devastation" when it seemed possible that Islam might master the whole sea to the final brief flourishing of a united Christendom in 1571.
The core of the story is the six years of bitter and bloody conflict between 1565 and 1571 that witnessed a fight to the finish. It was a tipping point in world civilization, a fast-paced struggle of spiraling intensity that led from the siege of Malta and the battle for Cyprus to the pope's last-gasp attempt to rekindle the spirit of the Crusades and the apocalypse at Lepanto. It features a rich cast of characters: Suleiman the Magnificent, greatest of Ottoman sultans; Hayrettin Barbarossa, the pirate who