Publisher's Synopsis
CYPRUS, DEPRIVATION OF FREEDOM The geographical position of the island of Cyprus never allowed her to be free, nor will it ever be self-governed under the present European Union's approach to the island's political situation and its people's financial problems. Cyprus has always been strategically important for the various tyrannical old Empires; hence the reason why Cyprus was colonized for more than two and a half thousand years. A Mycenaean colony in the 14th century BC, it was ruled successively by the Assyrian, Persian, Roman, and Byzantine empires. Richard I of England conquered it in 1191 and sold it to the French Crusader Guy de Lusignan under whom it became a feudal monarchy. An important base for the Crusades, it eventually came under the control of Italian trading states, until in 1571 it fell to the Ottoman Empire. It remained part of the Ottoman Empire until 1879, when it was placed under British administration. It was formally annexed by Britain in 1914 and in 1925 declared a crown colony
