Book description
In 1683, two empires - the Ottoman, based in Constantinople, and the
Habsburg dynasty in Vienna - came face to face in the culmination of a
250-year power struggle: the Great Siege of Vienna.
Within the city walls the choice of resistance over surrender to the
largest army ever assembled by the Turks created an all-or-nothing
scenario: every last survivor would be enslaved or ruthlessly
slaughtered. The Turks had set their sights on taking Vienna, the city
they had long called 'The Golden Apple' since their first siege of the
city in 1529. Both sides remained resolute, sustained by hatred of
their age-old enemy, certain that their victory would be won by the
grace of God.
Eastern invaders had always threatened the West: Huns, Mongols,
Goths, Visigoths, Vandals and many others. The Western fears of the
East were vivid and powerful and, in their new eyes, the Turks always
appeared the sole aggressors. Andrew Wheatcroft's extraordinary book
shows that this belief is a grievous oversimplification: during the
400 year struggle for domination, the West took the offensive just as
often as the East.
As modern Turkey seeks to re-orient its relationship with Europe, a
new generation of politicians is exploiting the residual fears and
tensions between East and West to hamper this change. The Enemy at
the Gate provides a timely and masterful account of this most
complex and epic of conflicts.
Andrew Wheatcroft is the author of many books on early modern and
modern history, including
The Ottomans
(1995) and
The Habsburgs
(1996). During the writing of
Infidels
(2004), on which he was working for more than seventeen years, he
researched in Austria, Bahrain, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Jordan,
Morocco, Spain, Turkey, the UAE, and the USA. His previous books have
been translated into over ten languages. He is based in Dumfriesshire,
and is currently Director of The Centre for Publishing Studies and also
teaches at the Department of English Studies at the University of
Stirling.
