This colourful study investigates the Byzantine and Seljuk forces that fought in a series of battles with profound implications for the Middle East during the 11th and 12th centuries.The Byzantine defeat at Manzikert in one of history's pivotal battles resulted in the victorious Seljuk Turks pushing west to the Bosporus. Byzantine appeals for aid sparked the First Crusade, as the Byzantines and Seljuks continued to fight their own private war for control of the Ana...

A groundbreaking history of the wars of the Ottoman Expansion, a truly global conflagration that crisscrossed three continents and ultimately defined the borders and future of modern Europe.The determined attempt to thwart Ottoman dominance was fought across five theaters from the Balkans to the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, from Persia to Russia. This intercontinental melee is expertly re-told in this fascinating new history by historian Si Sheppard....

In 1915–18, ANZAC and Ottoman soldiers clashed on numerous battlefields, from Gallipoli to Jerusalem. This illustrated study investigates the two sides' fighting men.The Gallipoli campaign of 1915–16 pitched the Australian and New Zealand volunteers known as the ANZACs into a series of desperate battles with the Ottoman soldiers defending their homeland. In August 1915, the bitter struggle for the high ground known as Chunuk Bair saw the peak change hands as the Al...

In 53 BC, Roman and Parthian forces collided in a confrontation that would reshape the geopolitical map and establish a frontier between East and West that would endure for the next 700 years.From the initial clash at Carrhae through to the battle of Nisibis more than 250 years later, Roman and Parthian forces fought a series of bloody campaigns for mastery of the Fertile Crescent.As Roman forces thrust ever deeper into the East, they encountered a civiliza...

A highly illustrated account of the Jewish Revolt against Roman rule in the 1st century AD.In AD 66 a local disturbance in Caesarea caused by Greeks sacrificing birds in front of a local synagogue exploded into a pan-Jewish revolt against their Roman overlords. Gaining momentum, the rebels successfully occupied Jerusalem and drove off an attack by the Roman legate of Syria, Cestus Gallius, who was defeated at the battle of Beth Horon. The emperor Nero dispatched th...

The Vikings' siege of Paris in 885–86 was a turning point in the history of both Paris and France.In 885, a year after Charles the Fat was crowned King of the Franks, Danish Vikings sailed up the Seine demanding tribute. The Franks' refusal prompted the Vikings to lay siege to Paris, which was initially defended by only 200 men under Odo, Count of Paris, and seemingly in a poor state to defend against the Viking warriors in their fleet of hundreds of longships. The...

A highly illustrated account of the Jewish Revolt against Roman rule in the 1st century AD.In AD 66 a local disturbance in Caesarea caused by Greeks sacrificing birds in front of a local synagogue exploded into a pan-Jewish revolt against their Roman overlords. Gaining momentum, the rebels successfully occupied Jerusalem and drove off an attack by the Roman legate of Syria, Cestus Gallius, who was defeated at the battle of Beth Horon. The emperor Nero dispatched th...

The siege of Constantinople in AD 717–18 was the supreme crisis of Western civilization.The Byzantine Empire had been reeling under the onslaught of Arabic imperialism since the death of the Prophet, whilst Jihadist armies had detached Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Carthage from imperial control and were in the process of imposing their ascendancy at sea. The Empire had been reduced to its Anatolian and Balkan heartland, and Arab incursions threatened even this – Ar...

Following the American Declaration of Independence, communities from Boston to Savannah were forced to make a choice: to strike out for an independent republic, or remain true to the British Crown.The American Revolutionary War was America's first civil war. As the conflict raged from Canada to the Caribbean and from India to Gibraltar, it was in American communities that the war was the most intimate, the most personal, and – accordingly – the most vicious.

A highly illustrated and detailed study of one of the most important campaigns in the colonization of the Americas, the Spanish conquest of the vast Inca Empire.In April 1532 a bloody civil war between two brothers ended with one of them, Atahualpa, as master of the mighty Inca Empire. Now the most powerful man in South America, his word was law for millions of subjects spread across thousands of square miles, from the parched deserts of the coast to the lush rainf...

This groundbreaking work tells the true story behind Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1936 reelection, drawing upon never-before-published personal files to expose a nexus of patronage and power that changed America forever.FDR's 1936 reelection represented his greatest political triumph. Yet the election remains largely unstudied despite the fact that critical decisions by some of the most colorful—and controversial—characters in American history make it one of the most si...

He masterminded the most devastating surprise attack against the United States in its history. He was a marked man in the war that followed.A key intelligence breakthrough enabled the military to pinpoint his location. An elite team was assembled and charged not with his capture and subsequent trial but with his execution. Osama bin Laden? No – this was Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet during World War II.This ...