The Arab Sieges of Constantinople: The History of the Umayyad Caliphate's Attempts to Conquer the Byzantine Capital

For nearly a thousand years, the Byzantine Empire protected Europe from Islamic powers, allowing it to pursue its own destiny, and Byzantium was a polyglot society in which a multitude of ethnic groups lived under the emperor prizing peace above war. Of course, it wasn't an accident that Constantinople survived for so long. Since ancient times, settlements have been protected by walls, ranging from simple earth fortifications, mounds, and ditches to sophisticated structures incorporating ga...