Audiobook14 hours
City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas
Written by Roger Crowley
Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
The rise and fall of the Venetian empire stands unrivaled for drama, intrigue, and sheer opulent majesty. In City of Fortune, Roger Crowley, acclaimed historian and New York Times bestselling author of Empires of the Sea, applies his narrative skill to chronicling the astounding five-hundred-year voyage of Venice to the pinnacle of power. Tracing the full arc of the Venetian imperial saga for the first time, City of Fortune is framed around two of the great collisions of world history: the ill-fated Fourth Crusade, which culminated in the sacking of Constantinople and the carve-up of the Byzantine Empire in 1204, and the Ottoman-Venetian War of 1499-1503, which saw the Ottoman Turks supplant the Venetians as the preeminent naval power in the Mediterranean. In between were three centuries of Venetian maritime dominance-years of plunder and plague, conquest and piracy-during which a tiny city of "lagoon dwellers" grew into the richest place on earth. Drawing on firsthand accounts of pitched sea battles, skillful negotiations, and diplomatic maneuvers, Crowley paints a vivid picture of this avaricious, enterprising people and the bountiful lands that came under their dominion. Defiant of emperors, indifferent to popes, the Venetians saw themselves as reluctant freebooters, compelled to take to the open seas "because we cannot live otherwise and know not how except by trade." From the opening of the spice routes to the clash between Christianity and Islam, Venice played a leading role in the defining conflicts of its time-the reverberations of which are still being felt today. Only an author with Roger Crowley's deep knowledge of post-Crusade history could put these iconic events into their proper context. Epic in scope, magisterial in its understanding of the period, City of Fortune is narrative history at its most engrossing.
More audiobooks from Roger Crowley
Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Empires of the Sea: The Siege of Malta, the Battle of Lepanto, and the Contest for the Center of the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to City of Fortune
Related audiobooks
The Venetians: A New History: From Marco Polo to Casanova Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Venice: A New History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Venice: Pure City Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Last Crusade: The Epic Voyages of Vasco da Gama Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5London: The Biography Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Florentines: From Dante to Galileo: The Transformation of Western Civilization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Empire: A New History of the World: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Civilizations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, Its Regions, and Their Peoples Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lotharingia: A Personal History of Europe's Lost Country Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Danubia: A Personal History of Habsburg Europe Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Measure of Man: Liberty, Virtue, and Beauty in the Florentine Renaissance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Artist, the Philosopher, and the Warrior: Da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Borgia and the World They Shaped Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise of Athens: The Story of the World's Greatest Civilization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265-146BC Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Medici: Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5World Without End: Spain, Philip II, and the First Global Empire Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The English and Their History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A History of France Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Charlemagne: Europe, Baghdad, and the Empires of A.D. 800 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
European History For You
Project MK-Ultra: The History of the CIA’s Controversial Human Experimentation Program Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Teutonic Knights: A Military History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Our Hideous Progeny: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Women in White Coats: How the First Women Doctors Changed the World of Medicine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Iron, Fire and Ice: The Real History that Inspired Game of Thrones Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The War on the West Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Over My Dead Body: Unearthing the Hidden History of American Cemeteries Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Royal Art of Poison: Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal History of Modern Ireland Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Anglo-Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 – 1066 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Short Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Whose Middle Ages?: Teachable Moments for an Ill-Used Past Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Templars: The History and the Myth: From Solomon's Temple to the Freemasons Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: with Pearl and Sir Orfeo Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery and the Failure of Emancipation Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Napoleon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ghost Map Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Royal Witches: Witchcraft and the Nobility in Fifteenth-Century England Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for City of Fortune
Rating: 4.021739023913043 out of 5 stars
4/5
92 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fascinating look at Venice. A city that ran itself as if it were a country separate from Italy, even going to war with various Italian cities. It was the Ottoman Empire that proved to be their biggest problem.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I visited Venice in midwinter many years ago now, and stepping around the multitudes of dead pigeons and machine gun-toting Carabinieri, I saw the grandeur of St Mark’s Square (and had the customary heart attack all tourists have upon discovering how expensive a coffee at the café there is), the Doge’s Palace and the Horses of St Mark’s, and wondered how Venice became the richest, biggest city in the world, and how it fell from grace. “City of Fortune” answers some of those questions.Rather than a complete history of Venice from its founding in the ninth century to its defeat by Napoleon, Crowley decides to focus on some key moments, such as Venice’s role in the sack of Constantinople and the ongoing tussles with Genoa and the Ottoman Empire. These sections are incredibly vivid and showcases Crowley’s impressive writing abilities. What was odd though was what Crowley didn’t cover; for example he mentions in passing that Venice once controlled Cyprus, which I thought deserved coverage of at least a few pages, and while Crowley writes as if the Ottoman Empire would inevitably destroy Venice, he doesn’t mention Napoleon’s role at all.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crowley opens with a vivid retelling of the Fourth Crusade (1203) that reads like a novel. Then for 300 years there are innumerable conflicts with the Genoese, Byzantines and Ottomans for control of the sea trade in the eastern Mediterranean. The Middle East was the gateway to India. Europeans with access to ships could build a sea empire moving goods from the Middle East to the European continent across the Mediterranean, where caravans from Germany would move goods further north. The Venetians perfected just on time delivery, regularity of delivery, abundance of choice. It was a kingdom found and ruled by entrepreneurs, where almighty profit sat above all else, except patron Saint Mark. The Venetians were a people of great solidarity who often died in horrific numbers, in Crowley's focus. Life on a ship was harsh. At some point the Venetians outsourced the hard work, a great divide emerged between and among the elites, and the ability to lead diminished. A lesson not lost in our own age.Chronologically, this is the first Crowley book followed by 1453 and Empires of the Sea and finally the latest on Portugal. I read Empires first and was somewhat lost on background, which City fills in.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Exciting and detailed narrative history of the rise and fall of Venice, the most Serene Republic, Married to the Seas, Europe's first economic superpower.
Crowley covers an unjustly ignored part of history, and he does so with a riveting style and generous quotations from primary sources. The sack of Constantinople and the Battle of Lepanto are especially vivid.
Very enjoyable history, and I'll have to get the 'sequels'. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Another of Crowley's well-written books about the narrative of empire in the Mediterranean before the rise of the Atlantic powers, where he follows the arrival of Venice as a full-fledged empire in the wake of the Fourth Crusade and how attrition and changing structural realities brought that empire low. For Crowley, the climax came at the battle of Zonchio in 1499, where failure of nerve led to strategic failure in the face of the Ottoman offensive; the confidence was never really rebuilt.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5City of fortune is an entertaining read that fills in the gaps between Crowley's earlier titles. The best part is his account of the notorious sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204, in which the Venetians redirected a crusader army against their former Byzantine master. A further fascinating tale is the commercial and military rivalry with Genoa which Venice also won. The big weakness of the book is its ending. As Crowley's book "Empires of the Sea" has covered much of 16th century Venetian history, City of Fortune ends at its start, rather inexplicably. A better solution would have been in referring to the book and treating the siege of Candia in detail. Perhaps this will be the focus of his next book. Overall, highly recommended as a fast read.