{"product_id":"9780241523650","title":"The Great Siege of Malta","description":"\u003cp\u003e'An epic account ... myth-busting ... Bull writes with knightly brio and packs a great deal of local and global history into his authoritative book' Pratinav Anil, The Times\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA major new history of the epic siege of the island fortress of Malta\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\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\n\n\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 since mistakenly recast as a climactic battle between the West and the East, it was also much more interesting and nuanced than that - both sides had many other interests and priorities beyond Malta. Süleyman 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\n\n\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":"Allen Lane","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49874841010424,"sku":"00000_00000_00000_00000","price":111.6,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0789\/8208\/6904\/files\/9780241523650-1.jpg?v=1783582534","url":"https:\/\/kinokuniya.com.au\/products\/9780241523650","provider":"Books Kinokuniya Australia","version":"1.0","type":"link"}