THERE ARE CERTAIN moments in military history that seem to capture the popular imagination so intensely that they enter the realm of myth. In Britain, they obviously include the Armada, Trafalgar, and the heroic exploits of the ‘few’. Each is something more than a purely military success. Suitably mythologised, such victories come to exemplify the superiority, not just of a nation’s courage and virtue, but of its destiny as well: the reassuring certitude that ‘God is on our side’.

For early modern Europe, that moment was Lepanto. Fought in 1571

Literary Review

Jul 2003

Categories

John Adamson

Ahead of Her Time

Did They Pullulate?

Ahead Of Her Time

Divided We Stand

The Sword & the Flute

A Fine Ligne

Eyewitness To An Era

A Tale of Two Houses

Ruled By an Orange

Pursuit of the Pastoral

Wrong But Wromantic

Venice Once Was Dear

Holding Out until the Last Slice of Polenta

Pistol Politics

Where Have All the Aboriginals Gone?

Showing Her Metal

Scots at the Top