City of Fortune

City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas
By Roger Crowley
Published in January 2012
473 Pages
Thibault’s Score: 2/5

My low score might be simply because I’m tired of reading about medieval Venice. I recently finished two other great books about the Serene Republic, and by comparison this one fell flat.

The information was identical, but somehow I found that the writing was too flowery. Instead of focusing on clarity, the author focused on semi-poetic descriptions. I made it past the end of the fourth crusade, which was described prosaically in all of its horrible detail. Afterwards, the chapters describing Venice’s domination of the Agean are also pretty interesting.

This book probably doesn’t deserve a 2/5; and I’d be open to revisiting Crowley’s other books. But for now, it might just be a question of exhaustion. Compared to all of the other great books I’ve read lately, it falls flat.

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