Book Review: The Man Who Stopped the Sultan
The Man Who Stopped the Sultan: Gabrielle Tadino and the Defense of Europe by Edoardo Albert is a nonfiction book exploring the life of Italian military engineer and Hospitaller Knight Gabrielle Tadino.
Tadino lived in the 16th century and became renowned for his feats of military engineering, especially in tunneling. In the first chapter, we learn of a drum-like device adorned with bells that Tadino invented to detect nearby enemy tunnels. Think of the can-and-string telephones we used as kids. As they were smaller, Tadino appointed local kids to work the notification device in the tunnels. The kids would place the drum against a tunnel wall and wait for the bells to jingle, alerting them that enemy sappers were nearing their position with their digging. Tadino and his men would then lay ambushes, set traps, or blow the tunnels before their enemies could succeed.
Tadino lived during a time when gunpowder and cannons were becoming the new norm in warfare. Cities were finding that the walls that had protected them for centuries were rapidly becoming obsolete under the onslaught of cannon fire.
I really enjoyed how this book was put together. It opens with a fictionalized account of Tadino's boyhood. Several of the following chapters begin with similarly written tales that occur throughout Tadino’ life. I felt these stories help give context for the historical information Albert is going to deliver in the next few chapters. These snippets of story help the book move along. Many nonfiction works (especially of the historical variety) can often be a drag to read because they’re so full of dates, figures, and facts that it’s hard to keep it all straight. I would hesitate to label this full narrative nonfiction, but it’s an interesting hybrid.
Though my memory may be fuzzy (it’s been several years since I read it), I kept thinking that Albert’s The Man Who Stopped the Sultan reminded me of Thomas Asbridge’s book about William Marshal, The Greatest Knight.
The chapters in The Man Who Stopped the Sultan are short, which keeps the pace lively and the story moving along. However, there are a few points in the book when the author shifts to talking about his modern-day family. I found this unnecessary and distracting. I understand Albert’s intent is to draw parallels with modern times, but these deviations completely pulled me out of the historic moment. I’m not reading this book to learn about the author’s cousin who lives on the Adriatic coast in the 21st century. I’m here to read about Gabrielle Tadino, the 16th-century Hospitaller Knight who stopped Suleiman.
I’m a history buff, though I usually prefer my history a century or two earlier than what Albert discusses here. Still, you can’t deny this was a fascinating period in human history. The rise of gunpowder intermingled with the lingering tenets of chivalry. Tadino’s life marks the end of one technological era and the rise of another. I’ve never read much about the Italian Wars, but after finishing Albert’s work, I feel better educated in that time period.
In my opinion, the goal of any writer of nonfiction should be to distill a complex topic into something cohesive yet understandable, and Albert succeeds at that with The Man Who Stopped the Sultan.
Thank you to NetGalley, Osprey Publishing, and Edoardo Albert for the opportunity to review this book in advance of its publication.
5/100