"Bloomsbury presents The Man Who Stopped the Sultan: Gabriele Tadino and the Defence of Europe by Edoardo Albert, read by Chris Courtenay.
An extraordinary account of how one man defied the most powerful ruler of his age and in doing so changed the course of European history.
Throughout the 16th century, wars raged across Europe as kings and republics jostled for wealth and power. Yet one man exceeded all these medieval princes of Christendom: Suleiman the Magnificent. As ruler of the Ottoman Empire, he governed 25 million people from Constantinople, his realm stretching from Persia to the Atlantic Ocean. Turning his gaze to Europe, Suleiman attacked Rhodes, the island fortress of the Knights Hospitaller but was opposed by Gabriele Tadino – an Italian who had risen through the ranks thanks to his genius as a military engineer.
This is a fascinating history of crusading knights and gunpowder, of spies and tunnels, and of a crossroads in history when the medieval age gave way to the Renaissance. Delving deep into Italian source material, Edoardo Albert weaves together the story of an ordinary man alive in an extraordinary time and performing extraordinary feats of military genius. Through the lens of his life we discover how military tactics and fortifications rapidly changed thanks to the discovery of gunpowder, and how Europe, divided by power-hungry rulers and religion, almost fell to one of the greatest rulers the world has ever seen, but was prevented by a humble engineer. C 2026 Edoardo Albert P 2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC"
"Als die heimtückischen T'au eine Walküre mit einem General des Astra Militarum auf der belagerten imperialen Welt Dasht i-Kevar zum Absturz bringen, steht alles auf dem Spiel – das Wissen des Generals könnte den Krieg entscheidend beeinflussen und den Planeten unter die Kontrolle der abscheulichen Xenos bringen. Nur die Kasrkin können ihn noch zurückholen. Sie sind die Elite der Elite, doch der Feind, den Hauptmann Bharath Obeysekera und sein Trupp bekämpfen sollen, ist anders als alles, was sie bisher erlebt haben: die Wüste selbst – endlos und unerbittlich. Da die Sandstürme sie von jeglicher Unterstützung abschneiden, kann sich Obeysekera nur auf seine Soldaten verlassen. Doch je tiefer die Kasrkin in die Wüste vordringen, desto klarer wird ihnen, dass sie nicht die einzigen Jäger sind, die nach dem vermissten General suchen, und dass ihr Krieg die Aufmerksamkeit von etwas Uraltem auf sich gezogen hat, das unter dem Wüstensand lauert."
"The story of the Bamburgh Sword—one of the finest swords ever forged.
In 2000, archaeologist Paul Gething rediscovered a sword. An unprepossessing length of rusty metal, it had been left in a suitcase for thirty years. But Paul had a suspicion that the sword had more to tell than appeared, so he sent it for specialist tests. When the results came back, he realized that what he had in his possession was possibly the finest, and certainly the most complex, sword ever made, which had been forged in seventh-century Northumberland by an anonymous swordsmith.
This is the story of the Bamburgh Sword—of how and why it was made, who made it and what it meant to the warriors and kings who wielded it over three centuries. It is also the remarkable story of the archaeologists and swordsmiths who found, studied, and attempted to recreate the weapon using only the materials and technologies available to the original smith."
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