Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453 by Roger Crowley (2013-04-18)

Crowley does a good job of detailing why the Byzantine Empire collapsed. In the fall of the city of Constantnople, the Greeks fought between themselves on whether to seek unity with the Roman Church. The politics of Byzantine required that they employ an Ottoman usurper in case they needed to stir up trouble with the Turks. After a while, the Turks under Mehmet simply decided to take the city down with a two month siege.I think the author sheds light on why this city fell. It has outlived its usefulness. It was truly a bloody affair, and the 50,000 people of the city were sold off into slavery. Approximately 4-5,000 perished in the battle for the capture of the city.This is a nicely written book about the sack of modern day Istanbul. Christian became Muslim, and Greek became Turk which is what it is today.