The Siege of Vienna: The Last Great Trial Between Cross & Crescent
by John Stoye
Book Summary Information
Author: John StoyeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-11-01
ISBN: 1933648635
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9781933648637
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
- Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices
Book Reviews of The Siege of Vienna: The Last Great Trial Between Cross & Crescent
Book Review: Primer on the diplomacy behind the battle
Summary: 3 Stars
A helpful account of the siege of Vienna in 1683, and its relief by combined German-Polish arms. This book is not a particularly sexy battle story. Hopefully there are better descriptions elsewhere of the battle itself.
This work is rather an excellent primer on late seventeenth-century European political complexity. There were so many independent German states (duchies, bishoprics, estates, and other assorted entities) that keeping track of who's who is a challenge. Mr. Stoye shows, in this seventeenth-century Europe, how supremely difficult it could be to put an army together, let alone to move it anywhere, and get it to do anything useful. (Getting the army to safely and peacefully go back where it came from afterwards was also a fairly tricky exercise.)
Stoye's focus was on the historical records of the Christian nations involved in the battle for Vienna. According to the author there was a much stronger European tradition of official letter-writing and record-keeping. Available Christian records were much more numerous than Ottoman records.
The only complaint is a lack of adequate maps. While the book did include an extremely helpful cutout diagram of Vienna's defenses (walls, moats, palisades, etc), the black & white maps in the fairly cheap Pegasus paperback edition were difficult to read. It was an unwelcome distraction.
All in all, recommended and - if one has any interest in the origins of modern Europe - well worth reading.
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