Engaging style, but plays fast and loose, e.g. Constantinople's interactions with Rome, concurrent events in Europe, and especially with terminology like "rifles", "muskets", "galleys", which a serious historian would not have done. Decent and readable though. ( )

Even though you know what happened, the how it happened will keep you coming back . ( )

I really enjoyed this. It's a good narrative of a time period I didn't have a lot of familiarity to begin with, and it manages to give enough baseline information for a newbie in an engaging way while moving the story along. Loved how 1453 covers political, warfare tactics, religious implications and culture seamlessly. ( )

A fine, if at times sensationalistic, recounting of the capture of Constantinople by the Ottoman armies in 1453. Crowley largely limits himself to telling the narrative of events, based on the various (at times unreliable or contradictory) written sources by eyewitnesses or contemporary historians. A richer book would have looked at the why as well as the what, exploring the structural factors behind the rise of the Ottomans from disaster a mere generation before (when they were crushed by Tamerlane), behind the Byzantine decline, behind the Italian presence in the east, etc. But 1453 wasn't bad for lacking this, merely less deep than it could have been. Read this to get the story and look elsewhere for the meaning. ( )

Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453 Well written book about the fall of Constantinople. ( )