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Defenders Of The Faith: Charles V, Suleyman The Magnificent, And The Battle For Europe, 1520-1536 (2009)

by James Reston Jr.(Favorite Author)

3.89 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1594202257 (ISBN13: 9781594202254)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Penguin Press HC, The

review 1: Many reviewers have highlighted the pros and cons of this book. It is beautifully written and well organized. Reston creates a brilliantly structured historical narrative that is not bogged with too much detail, sidelines, or academic prose. He is writing for a mass audience, not just historians and students. On the flip side, the title implies a great clash of cultures. Nothing could be further from the truth. While this argument is injected from time to time in the reading, there is no real evidence. Only once or twice do readers hear the Christians decrying the Turkish menace. Charles V seems totally unconcerned about the threat and never sends aide to Austria or the Balkans. The Turks certainly had an interest in expanding into Europe; but the Western powers h... moread little history of any sort of presence in the Balkans or Hungary. If Suleyman had captured Vienna, they might have thought differently; but there was no concerted Christian effort to thwart the Turks. Also, disingenuously presented in the book is that Charles was the most powerful sovereign in Europe. If one only looks at a map of Hapsburg territories is this true. A large part of the book highlights the rise of the Reformation. This effectively cut off Charles from half of Germany. Furthermore, the German princes, even the Catholic princes, were a motley crew of jealously independent rulers. Charles really could only count on Spain and Austria (through his brother). Even if he wanted to confront the Turks the cost and logistics of moving and maintaining a Spanish army into the Balkans was clearly impossible. Reston could have avoided this pitfall had he crafted a different title, one that highlighted the battles of the two rulers with regards to schisms in their own religions rather than each other. Of course, that would require greater involvement in explaining the philosophical differences between Luther and Clement VII and Sunnis and Shiites. Reston clearly had problems discussing the former, and made almost no attempt at the later. This forced him to focus more on Ottoman-European relations than religion. In sum, the book is excellent and recommended for those interested in history; and not so much for those interested in religion.
review 2: In some respects this book does not achieve its stated goal. The two stories that it tries to pull together never come together. This is due to the fact that Charles V and Suleyman never directly challenge each other. So the comparison suffers. That is the only thing that suffers because his writing is engaging and each story is well rendered and compelling. Even though this does not come together as well as his other works it is still an excellent read. less

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