THOMAS F. MADDEN

Crónica de las guerras entre la cristiandad y el islam en Oriente Próximo, con una información rigurosa sobre su contexto social, religioso y cultural. Incluye textos explicativos sobre las campañas emprendidas en Europa por la Iglesia contra las herejías y los pueblos paganos, desde el sur de Francia al Báltico. Una buena referencia para entender buena parte de los conflictos modernos. Se analizan las campañas militares más destacadas y los episodios clave, al tiempo que se examina el fructífero encuentro entre Oriente y Occidente. Con espléndidas ilustraciones, permite revivir un episodio histórico decisivo, así como analizar las raíces históricas de los conflictos existentes hoy en día entre el islam y Occidente; un excelente trabajo para profundizar en uno de los fenómenos más fascinantes de la Edad Media.

An acclaimed historian offers an optimistic view of the future of the United States in the light of Roman history Maybe the end of the American ascendancy is not upon us. Maybe the U.S. will continue to dominate the world for centuries. Now award-winning historian Thomas Madden delivers an optimistic view of our nations future. Madden shows that the power of the ancient Roman republic and the U.S. was built on trust between allies, not the conquest of enemies. The far-reaching implications of this fact are essential reading for anyone who cares about the challenges we face now and in the years ahead. Packed with stories from Roman history that offer amazingly obvious and explicitly stated parallels to our recent history, Empires of Trust is a narrative pleasure and a hopeful inspiration.

An extraordinary chronicle of Venice, its people, and its grandeurThomas Maddens majestic, sprawling history of Venice is the first full portrait of the city in English in almost thirty years. Using long-buried archival material and a wealth of newly translated documents, Madden weaves a spellbinding story of a place and its people, tracing an arc from the citys humble origins as a lagoon refuge to its apex as a vast maritime empire and Renaissance epicenter to its rebirth as a modern tourist hub.Madden explores all aspects of Venices breathtaking achievements: the construction of its unparalleled navy, its role as an economic powerhouse and birthplace of capitalism, its popularization of opera, the stunning architecture of its watery environs, and more. He sets these in the context of the rise and fall of the Byzantine Empire, the endless waves of Crusades to the Holy Land, and the awesome power of Turkish sultans. And perhaps most critically, Madden corrects the stereotype of Shakespeares money-lending Shylock that has distorted the Venetian character, uncovering instead a much more complex and fascinating story, peopled by men and women whose ingenuity and deep faith profoundly altered the course of civilization.

For more than two millennia Istanbul has stood at the crossroads of the world, perched at the very tip of Europe, gazing across at the shores of Asia. The history of this cityknown as Byzantium, then Constantinople, now Istanbulis at once glorious, outsized, and astounding. Founded by the Greeks, its location blessed it as a center for trade but also made it a target of every empire in history, from Alexander the Great and his Macedonian Empire, to the Romans and later the Ottomans. At its most spectacular, Istanbul was re-founded by Emperor Constantine I as New Rome, the capital of the eastern Roman Empire. He dramatically expanded the city, filling it with artistic treasures, and adorning the streets with opulent palaces. Constantine built new walls around it allwalls that were truly impregnable and preserved power, wealth, and withstood any aggressorwalls that still stand for tourists to visit. From its ancient past to the present, we meet the city through its ordinary citizensthe Jews, Muslims, Italians, Greeks, and Russians who used the famous baths and walked the bazaars, and the rulers who built it up and then destroyed it, including Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the man who christened the city "Istanbul" in 1930. Thomas Maddens entertaining narrative brings to life the city we see today, including the rich splendor of the churches and monasteries that spread throughout the city.Istanbul draws on a lifetime of study and the latest scholarship, transporting readers to a city of unparalleled importance and majesty that holds the key to understanding modern civilization. In the words of Napoleon Bonaparte, "If the Earth were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital."