| Balkan Wars: Habsburg Croatia, Ottoman Bosnia, and Venetian Dalmatia, 1499-1617 Contributor(s): Tracy, James D. (Author) |
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ISBN: 1442213582 ISBN-13: 9781442213586 Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers OUR PRICE: $108.90 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: July 2016 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Military - Wars & Conflicts (other) - History | Eastern Europe - General - History | Europe - Austria & Hungary |
| Dewey: 949.603 |
| LCCN: 2016004970 |
| Physical Information: 1.2" H x 6.2" W x 9.2" (1.55 lbs) 456 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Eastern Europe - Cultural Region - Balkan - Chronological Period - 15th Century - Chronological Period - 16th Century - Chronological Period - 17th Century |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Distinguished scholar James D. Tracy shows how the Ottoman advance across Europe stalled in the western Balkans, where three great powers confronted one another in three adjoining provinces: Habsburg Croatia, Ottoman Bosnia, and Venetian Dalmatia. Until about 1580, Bosnia was a platform for Ottoman expansion, and Croatia steadily lost territory, while Venice focused on protecting the Dalmatian harbors vital for its trade with the Ottoman east. But as Habsburg-Austrian elites coalesced behind military reforms, they stabilized Croatia's frontier, while Bosnia shifted its attention to trade, and Habsburg raiders crossing Dalmatia heightened tensions with Venice. The period ended with a long inconclusive war between Habsburgs and Ottomans, and a brief inconclusive war between Austria and Venice. Based on rich primary research and a masterful synthesis of key studies, this book is the first English-language history of the early modern Western Balkans. More broadly, it brings out how the Ottomans and their European rivals conducted their wars in fundamentally different ways. A sultan's commands were not negotiable, and Ottoman generals were held to a time-tested strategy for conquest. Habsburg sovereigns had to bargain with their elites, and it took elaborate processes of consultation to rally provincial estates behind common goals. In the end, government-by-consensus was able to withstand government-by-command. |