Istanbul has always been a place where stories and histories
collide and crackle, where the idea is as potent as the historical fact. From
the Quran to Shakespeare, this city with three names — Byzantium,
Constantinople, Istanbul — resonates as an idea and a place, and overspills its
boundaries both real and imagined.
اضافة اعلان
Standing as the gateway between the East and West, it has
served as the capital of the Roman, Byzantine, Latin and Ottoman Empires. For
much of its history it was known simply as The City, but, as Bettany Hughes
reveals, Istanbul is not just a city, but a story.
In this epic new biography, Hughes takes us on a dazzling
historical journey through the many incarnations of one of the world’s greatest
cities. As the longest-lived political entity in Europe, over the last 6,000
years Istanbul has absorbed a mosaic of micro-cities and cultures all gathering
around the core. At the latest count archaeologists have measured forty-two
human habitation layers.
Phoenicians, Genoese, Venetians, Jews, Vikings, Azeris all
called a patch of this earth their home. Based on meticulous research and new
archaeological evidence, this captivating portrait of the momentous life of
Istanbul is visceral, immediate and scholarly narrative history at its finest.
Reviews
“This is historical narrative brimming with brio and
incident. Hughes’s portraits are written with a zesty flourish ... Istanbul is
a visceral, pulsating city. In Bettany Hughes’s life-filled and life-affirming
history, steeped in romance and written with verve, it has found a sympathetic
and engaging champion.” — Justin Marozzi, The Guardian
“Her latest book,
Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities, is a
particular stroke of genius ... Over the years the city has had three names —
Byzantium, Constantinople, and Istanbul so in a vivid rattle she hurls Xerxes,
Alcibiades, Constantine, Justinian, Theodora, Suleyman the Magnificent and a
sometimes-overwhelming cast of thousands before us ... It is a story well worth
telling as the region continues to implode, the final or at least latest
lashings out of the Ottoman Empire’s collapse ... The book is littered with
historical echoes that ... are impossible to ignore ... there are wonderful
anecdotes. ... She concludes with an encomium to Istanbul as a world city —
literally, a cosmo-polis — where faiths and ethnicities are brought together by
learning or trade ... not an original thought but one that in this particularly
troubled moment, for bomb-hit Istanbul and the rest of us, bears repeating.” —
Richard Spencer, The Times
“A magisterial new biography... Bettany Hughes transports
the reader on a magic-carpet-like journey through 8,000 years of history ... in
a vivid narrative dotted with colorful characters and fascinating tangents ...
the quintessential historical overview of a city racing up the modern political
agenda.” — Richard Turner, The Lady
“10 years in the researching and writing, it’s a glittering
mosaic of a history, packing the stories of three cities — Byzantium,
Constantinople and Istanbul — into one volume, from their earliest settlement
in 6000BC, to the 20th century.” — Caroline Sanderson, The Bookseller
About the author
Bettany Hughes is an award-winning historian, author, and
broadcaster. Her previous books (Helen of Troy: Goddess, Princess, Whore And
The Hemlock Cup: Socrates, Athens And The Search For The Good Life) were
published to great critical acclaim and worldwide success.
Hughes has made a number of factual films and documentaries
for the BBC, Channel 4, PBS, National Geographic, Discovery, The History
Channel, and ABC. She is a Research Fellow of King’s College London and has been
honored with numerous awards including the Norton Medlicott Medal for History.
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