Defenders of the Faith
Defenders of the Faith: Charles V, Suleyman the Magnificent, and the Battle for Europe, 1520-1536
Jr., James Reston,
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
ISBN: 1594202257
DDC: 940.232
Edition: Hardcover; 2009-05-14
Summary:
A bestselling historian recounts sixteen years that shook the world—
the epic clash between Europe and the Ottoman Turks that ended the
Renaissance and brought Islam to the gates of Vienna In the
bestselling Warriors of God and Dogs of God, James Reston, Jr.,
limned two epochal conflicts between Islam and Christendom. Here he
examines the ultimate battle in that centuries-long war, which found
Europe at its most vulnerable and Islam on the attack. This drama was
propelled by two astonishing young sovereigns: Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V and Turkish sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. Though they
represented two colliding worlds, they were remarkably similar. Each
was a poet and cultured cosmopolitan; each was the most powerful man
on his continent; each was called “Defender of the Faith”; and each
faced strident religious rebellion in his domain. Charles was beset
by the “heresy” of Martin Luther and his fervid adherents, even while
tensions between him and the pope threatened to boil over, and the
upstart French king Francis I harried Charles’s realm by land and
sea. Suleyman was hardly more comfortable on his throne. He had
earned his crown by avoiding the grim Ottoman tradition of royal
fratricide. Shiites in the East were fighting off the Sunni Turks’
cruel repression of their “heresy.” The ferocity and skill of
Suleyman’s Janissaries had expanded the Ottoman Empire to its
greatest extent ever, but these slave soldiers became rebellious when
foreign wars did not engage them. With Europe newly hobbled and the
Turks suffused with restless vigor, the stage was set for a drama
that unfolded from Hungary to Rhodes and ultimately to Vienna itself,
which both sides thought the Turks could win. If that happened, it
was generally agreed that Europe would become Muslim as far west as
the Rhine. During these same years, Europe was roiled by constant
internal tumult that saw, among other spectacles, the Diet of Worms,
the Sack of Rome, and an actual wrestling match between the English
and French monarchs in which Henry VIII’s pride was badly hurt.
Would—could—this fractious continent be united to repulse a fearsome
enemy?
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