Cross & Crescent in the Balkans: The Ottoman Conquest of Southeastern Europe

This is NOT just another retelling of the Fall of Constantinople, though it does include a very fine account of that momentous event. It is the history of a quite extraordinary century, one which began when a tiny of force of Ottoman Turkish warriors was invited by the Christian Byzantine Emperor to cross the Dardanelles from Asia into Europe to assist him in one of the civil wars which were tearing the fast—declining Byzantine Empire apart.

One hundred and eight years later the Byzantine ca...