{"product_id":"9780241523650","title":"The Great Siege of Malta","description":"\u003cp\u003e Author(s): Bull, Marcus \u003cbr\u003e Binding: Hardback, \u003cbr\u003e Date of Publication: 30\/01\/2025,\u003cbr\u003e Pagination: 352 pages,\u003cbr\u003e ISBN13\\EAN\\SKU: 9780241523650,\u003cbr\u003e Description: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEven as the great siege began it was understood by both sides to be an epic – a potentially decisive encounter between an uneasy assortment of soldiers, native Maltese, adventurers and Knights Hospitaller on a strategically crucial but near waterless island and a vast, seemingly all-powerful Ottoman armada. With three quarters of the Mediterranean’s coasts already in the hands of the Sultan and his allies, all eyes were now on Malta.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis superb new account of the siege emphasises the crucial importance of the siege while at the same time putting it in a far wider context. While seen as a climactic battle between the West and the East, it was also much more nuanced than that – both sides had many other interests and priorities beyond Malta. Suleiman the Magnificent had conquered and subsumed regions from Hungary to the Persian Gulf; Philip II was building an empire in America and Asia.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing on a wide range of eyewitness stories, Marcus Bull gives a vivid sense of the period’s technologies, values and assumptions. It was a grim world built on the labour of many thousands of disposable galley-slaves, shockingly brutal forms of warfare and religious absolutism. But it was also a world filled with the most extraordinary new discoveries and ideas. Both these worlds come together in the siege and in this book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Griffin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53592946966901,"sku":"9780241523650","price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0379\/1365\/7388\/files\/9780241523650.jpg?v=1729802772","url":"https:\/\/www.griffinbooksonline.co.uk\/products\/9780241523650","provider":"Griffin Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}