Fall of Constantinople 1453, The

First published in 1965, this is a scholarly and highly accessible study of Constantinople's fall, an event which had tumultuous repercussions across both East and West. Runciman demonstrates the inevitability of the Turkish conquest and the impotence of the Byzantine Empire which, at the time, comprised only one ineffectual city. This vivid account reconstructs the dramatic events which won the Turks an imperial capital, with a vital geographical location, and examines how the Greeks reacted to this devastating blow.