A new ethnic identity is being constructed in the United States: the Hispanic nation. Overcoming age-old racial, regional, and political differences, Americans of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and other Spanish-language origins are beginning to imagine themselves as a single ethnic community-which by the turn of the century may become the United States' largest and most influential minority.

In 1402, the Christian city of Constantinople is under attack by a Muslim army. With surrender in the wind, the spoils are to be the key to the city and the 14-year-old Princess Theodota. In the twists and turns of historical fact, Geoffrey Fox delivers A Gift for the Sultan, a dramatic, fact-based novel that probes the cultural and religious life of the early 15th century and the leaders-royals, military figures, and politicians-who engaged in a religious conflict to the death. Weaving into his story a cast of historical figures-Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos, his nephew Ioannes, the vezir...