Hughes' portraits are written with a zesty flourish.One wonders whom she could possibly be thinking of in 10 Downing Street or The White House when she concludes that 'to know Istanbul is to know what it is to be cosmopolitan - this is a city that reminds us that we are, indeed, citizens of the world.' Istanbul a visceral, pulsating city.In Bettany Hughes' life-filled and life-affirming history, steeped in romance and written with verve, it has found a sympathetic and engaging champion. This is a historical narrative brimming with brio and incident. She populates her three cities of Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul with a rich and dizzying cast of ordinary and extraordinary men and women. 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.įortunately for today’s readers, the historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes has outlook, sufficiently wide to encompass everything from the earliest spear-carrying bronze age inhabitants to marauding ancient Greeks, Christian-slaughtering Roman emperors, pious Byzantine ascetics, world-conquering Ottomans and hatchet-faced 20th-century nationalists. Phoenicians, Genoese, Venetians, Jews, Vikings, Azeris all called a patch of this earth their home. At the latest count archaeologists have measured forty-two human habitation layers. 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. 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. 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. Standing as the gateway between the East and West, it has served as the capital of the Roman, Byzantine, Latin and Ottoman Empires. From the Qu'ran to Shakespeare, this city with three names - Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul - resonates as an idea and a place, and overspills its boundaries - real and imagined. Istanbul has always been a place where stories and histories collide and crackle, where the idea is as potent as the historical fact.

Helen of Troy by Bettany Hughes