{"product_id":"great-siege-of-malta","title":"Great Siege Of Malta (Paperback)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\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\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\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\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\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\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Marcus Bull","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47229962027186,"sku":"9780141997759","price":380.0,"currency_code":"ZAR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0562\/9191\/8002\/files\/9780141997759.webp?v=1774617883","url":"https:\/\/www.wordsworth.co.za\/products\/great-siege-of-malta","provider":"Wordsworth Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}