Roger Crowley writes fun history books. His writing is fluid, he focuses on the stories that hold my attention, and he turns narrative into fascination. His latest, City of Fortune: How Venice Ruled the Seas, is no exception.

Crowley looks at two key points in the long history of Venice: the sacking of Constantinople when Venice suddenly became an empire, and the decline of Venice at the hands of the Ottomans. He brings alive the sense of purpose the people of Venice had. The idea of the city as corporation becomes clear here. The intertwining of faith, trade, empire and profit are all jumbled together in a lot of books about Venice, but Crowley pulls it together well. As he writes at one point, “It’s iconic moments were framed in commercial terms … in words that intertwined religion and profits.”

If you like history, especially Mediterranean history, you’ll love this book.