I finally bought this in softcover when I realized I wasn't likely to find a hardback of the 1990-ish original, and read it in less than a day while on a plane to New Orleans. It's a good detailed history of Constantine XI, which gives you all the background you'd ever need on him, as well as far more detail on the post-death accounts than anyone would ever need (it is essentially cataloging the legends that surround the last emperor of Byzantium) as well as a really somewhat interesting tracking down of all the various descendants of the imperial Palaeologus family, as well as of other people who simply shared the name. The text itself is not nearly as compelling with regard to the 1453 siege as Crowley's 1453 and frankly, it's something that only a completist would want. But, I'm a Constantine XI completist, so I had to have it.