The West begins the Fourth Crusade in 1204 under the pretext of liberating the Holy Lands. Venetians and Franks, the clergy and the architect of the plan, Doge Dandolo, coveting the wealth and prestige of the Byzantine Empire, will lead the Crusader forces outside the gates of Constantinople. The inquisitive reader will travel back in time through this book to the Fourth Crusade, one of the most significant pages in world history.

The conspiracies and feuds that preceded it, the chronicle of the siege and encirclement of the City by the Crusaders, the battles and the atrocities of the plunder, up to the last day of the occupation that will be the cause of the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, unfold in a unique way within the pages of the fascinating narrative by the British scholar.

The repercussions of the Fourth Crusade on European civilization were entirely destructive. The brilliance of Greek culture, which Byzantium maintained for nine centuries after the choice of Constantinople as capital, suddenly faded. The crime of the Fourth Crusade delivered Constantinople and the Balkan Peninsula into six centuries of barbarism. In order to grasp the full significance of the Latin conquest of Constantinople, we must attempt to realize what the culture of Western Europe would be today if the six-century-old Romania had not been destroyed.

One can imagine not only the Black Sea, the Bosphorus, and the Sea of Marmara surrounded by progressive and civilized nations, but even the eastern and southern coasts of the Mediterranean returning under good governance and under a religion that poses no barrier to culture.

The perspective of the now mature and critically thinking Sir Edwin Pears, a lawyer, publisher, and historian who successfully served these sciences in his homeland of England, becomes sharper and more penetrating with his many years spent in the City.

Eventually taking the highest position he could hold, that of the president of the European Bar Association of Constantinople, and maintaining an independent and critical view regarding local affairs and the Eastern Question, he captures these capabilities in his significant book The Fall of Constantinople in 1204, which he will complement with equal success with his second book, also published by us, The Destruction of the Greek Empire, which is none other than the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 by Mehmed II the Conqueror.

It is not a figure of speech or exaggeration that world criticism has ranked these works among the most important of Byzantine historiography, characterizing them as high in significance and objectivity. The erudite, penetrating, critical, and above all strict and fair historian Sir Edwin Pears consistently assigns the responsibilities for the dissolution of the thousand-year-old Byzantine Empire, which for centuries served as the shield of Europe and the most significant center of European culture.