Mr. Magoulias has a difficult chore here. A direct translation of the title is "Historia Turko-Byzantina", and the bulk of the work is of little reliability. Doukas was from Mytilene, not Constantinople and the book has no first hand account of the histoey of the Paleilogian dynasty from a close source. or much documentary back up. In consequence the book is of little reliability except for the five years preceding 1453, and the decade after it. The Author loves a good simple story, and the bulk of the information is relating mostly from his personal experience. The translator did do a competent job of the text, but the author pedantically uses the Ancient Greek names for the locales which by his own day was using far more modern names. This is off-putting to anyone with a more modern map in their forebrain, or on the desk for reference. The biography by Critobulus is clearer, and thus this is a back-up colour source for the student. ( )

This is a first hand, eye-witness account of the final days of the Byzantine Empire, written by a relatively important official. The account is not surprisingly biased against the invading Ottoman Turks, yet is not fatally so. This is an essential work for anyone interested in the events of 1453. ( )