Ernle Bradford Books

Malta, then one of the easternmost bastions of Christendom, was attacked in 1565 by the Sultan of Turkey with 200 ships and 40,000 men. This book is based upon historical records and tells how approximately 700 Knights of St John plus 9,000 men defended Malta against the Sultan's armed forces.

. 1988, 185pp

An analysis of artifacts recovered from the Mary Rose, a sixteenth-century warship that sank off the coast of England evaluates the importance of the ship as an archaeological record of life in Tudor England

The order of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem is the most long-lived of the great military orders of knighthood. Originating in a hospice on the road to Jerusalem and officially founded in 1099 during the First Crusade, the Knights of St. John continued to grow in wealth, power, and territory long after they were run out of Jerusalem by victorious Muslim forces. In The Shield and the Sword, Ernle Bradford displays his talents as a master storyteller and great scholar of the Mediterranean, charting the intriguing history of the Knights-from their origins in the Holy Land to their subsequent relocations to Rhodes, the island of Malta, and eventually England.

Situated halfway between Europe and Africa, Malta played a central role in the battles for the mastery of North Africa. The island was the vital supply base for British and Imperial troops in the to-and-fro desert campaigns against first Italy and then Germany and Rommel's Afrika Korps. The three-year siege of Malta was one of the longest sieges in history. In this thrilling account the author, who first came to know and love Malta whilst serving with the Royal Navy during the Second World War, paints a vivid picture of the suffering of the island and its population. He draws on personal accounts and reminiscences of the participants; he tells of the occasional despair that turned to joy when the convoys got through with much-needed supplies and of the bravery of both the civilians and the armed forces stationed there that won for Malta the George Cross.

For thousands of years people have sailed, traded, and fought across the waters of the Mediterranean. On its shores and islands they have built cities, colonised, dreamed, conquered and fallen. This sea, which brings together three continents, was the cradle of western civilisation.

Vier Jahrhunderte lang war das Großkampfschiff die stärkste Kriegswaffe der Welt. Seine Herrschaft währte von den Galeeren des Mittelalters bis zu den großen Schlachtschiffen und Flugzeugträgern des 20. Jahrhunderts. Erst dann wurde es von den als Waffe überlegenen U-Booten, Flugzeugen und Raketen abgelöst. Der populäre Marinehistoriker Ernle Bradford zeichnet hier die Entwicklung der mächtigen "Festungen des Meeres" nach, schildert farbig die wichtigsten Schlachten und erläutert den Wandel der Seekriegstaktik von Lepanto bis zur Gegenwart.

Although endowed with oratorical and literary gifts, Julius Caesar is known to us primarily as a man of action. So it's not surprising that Bradford's popular biography is largely a succession of actions--most of them, also unsurprisingly, military actions. Caesar was indeed almost always fighting someone, either subjugating northern Europe, Britain, or Egypt, or engaged in civil war with the forces of Pompey. Bradford (Hannibal, Nelson, etc.) is reasonably good on the big campaigns and the big battles, apportioning judicious doses of praise, blame, or fortune as he sees fit (and he's aware, too, that most of Caesar's opponents were not well-trained troops). But on Caesar as a political figure, Bradford is on softer ground. Caesar, he claims, had finely honed political instincts; by this Bradford seems to mean that he knew how to pass around the spoils. The claim that Caesar's republican adversaries sealed the fate of republicanism when they assassinated him, bringing chaos to the order he had maintained and ushering in Imperial rule, has a nice ring to it; but there is not enough background to the conflict between Caesar, Cicero, Cato, and the rest to substantiate it. In short, all the usual material is here--from calendars to Cleopatra--and while it's pretty easy to take, it doesn't add up to much that is enduring. For general readers, though: as serviceable an introduction as presently exists.

Auf den wiederentdeckten Fährten des Odysseus zu den schönsten Inseln, Küsten und Stätten des MittelmeersWer immer eine Mittelmeer-Kreuzfahrt unternimmt und die archaischen Stätten und berühmten Inseln besucht, der kreuzt auch die Spuren des Odysseus, der auf seinen Irrfahrten so zahllose Abenteuer zu bestehen hatte …Sieben Jahre folgte Ernle Bradford in seinem Segelboot dem verschlungenen Kurs des zu Circe und Kalypso, zu Scylla und Charybdis, vorbei an den lockenden Sirenen zu den Gestaden und Inseln des Lichts …Was alles er fand und erlebte, das hat Bradford in diesem spannenden Reiseführer dargestellt.(Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine frühere Ausgabe.)

V době, kdy se objevovaly nové světadíly a nové námořní cesty, ovládali Středozemní moře dva bratři – Oruč a Chizr Barbarossové. Legenda o nich praví, že byli korzáři, piráti a lupiči. Ve skutečnosti byli – zejména mladší z nich – nejlepšími námořníky své doby a udatnými bojovníky. Chizr Barbarossa byl zakladatelem tureckého válečného loďstva, vůdčí osobnost na dvoře Sulejmana Velkého, člověk vzdělaný a kultivovaný, který ovládal nejméně šest jazyků a který položil základy muslimských států na africkém pobřeží Středozemního moře. Bradfordova kniha o dobrodružných plavbách rudovousých bratří Barbarossů je pokusem odstranit falešné nánosy evropských historiků zkreslující portrét pozoruhodného člověka, jenž ovlivnil vývoj celého Středozemí.