Istanbul: City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World

This is a FABULOUS book about Istanbul covering the entire history of the city in a sparkling and dazzling narrative. Historian Thomas F. Madden has done an incredible job compiling the history of the city into a mere 358 pages. It is beautifully written and hard to put down. He spent more than twenty years working on the book and his patience and efforts show. He has truly written a noteworthy book from the heart, and it is obvious that he has lived and breathed the city.Madden divides the book into four parts: Byzantion (667 BC-AD330), Byzantine Constantinople (330-1453), Ottoman Constantinople (1453-1923) and finally Istanbul (1923-2016). He provides maps of the city that are helpful and does an excellent job surveying each period— the Ottoman period too! (Thank you Mr. Madden and your publisher Penguin Random House for doing the Ottomans justice by giving an accurate portrayal of their history— a rare find these days sadly!) The city has a rich Christian Greco-Roman history that is well documented here too. He also gives a wonderful introduction into Modern Turkey, beginning with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the incredible hero who galvanized the nation and formed a constitutional republic after the First World War— the first in the Muslim world.I LOVED this book and wholeheartedly recommend it to anybody who loves the city or wants to learn more about it and its history. I don’t think anyone can truly understand world history without knowing the history of Istanbul.“Istanbul located at the junction of two great worlds, the ornament of the Turkish nation, the treasure of Turkish history, the dearest object of the Turkish nation, has a place in the heart of every Turk.”Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Founder of Turkey

This wonderful book makes reading history fun. This delicious travelogue of a 358-page book is an easy-to-read jewel that is as insightful, pedagogical, and pleasurable as it is suspenseful. This book is a feast for the reader's mind and imagination.Professor Thomas F. Madden's packing of thousands of years of history, from the Byzantion's of 667 BC to AD 330 to today's Istanbul, into this book exhibits his masterful telling of infinitely complex and profoundly rich history. The exquisitely told details of Byzantion, Byzantine Constantinople, Ottoman Constantinople, and today's Istanbul, make history come alive, rendering this precious book a page-turner. It's a feat of extraordinary writing by Professor Madden that enabled me to understand modern Turkey, in general, and Istanbul, in particular, a little better.I fell in love with Hagia Sophia from the first time I saw television images of it years ago. This book helped me appreciate it and love it even more. Regardless of whether it reverts back to a grand mosque (perhaps remotely likely) or a magnificent basilica (impossibly unlikely), or remain a marvelous museum (most assuredly), I shall visit it in my lifetime, as I have already done with other places on my bucket list, including St. Peter's Basilica and La Sagrada Familia.Hagia Sophia, as perhaps the quintessential symbol of Byzantine Constantinople, Ottoman Constantinople and today's Istanbul, provides insights into today's geopolitical dynamism in the "Middle East". Professor Madden writes: "Members of the AK [Justice and Development] Party have repeatedly discussed turning Hagia Sophia back into a mosque. Indeed, demonstrations calling for the restorations erupted outside the ancient structure in 2014 and 2015, and are likely to continue."Turkey, a long-time member of the U.N. and a seasoned member of NATO and seeking to become an EU member, has a modern, sophisticated and disciplined military and whose readiness likely surpasses that of Germany's -- if recent reports of Germany's sorry state of readiness are true. In short, this book provides foundational understandings of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey."The City", as Professor Madden notes in the last page of this page, is "Too important to abandon, too strategic to avoid, too beautiful to resist, Istanbul long drew to it the peoples of the Mediterranean, muddled them together in the streets and markets, and produced a community that is ever changing. Its strength was never solely in its mighty walls or its well-trained militaries, but in the determination of its inhabitants to hold firm to it no matter that cost."I'd recommend this book to anyone who in interested in current world events.

This book is fabulous! Read it before you go, and you will get so much more out of your Istanbul visit.The author tells the complicated history of Istanbul in a clear, concise, scholarly way, and never strayed from being captivating at the time.There was only one thing I wish he had been been more clear on: the location of the end of the Via Egnatia and the old entrance into the city. We didn't find it with his directions. It probably would have been better reference by its current name - Altınkapı.Read it. You'll so thankful that you did. Istanbul history is like nothing else.

This is an outstanding overview of the city of Istanbul from its founding to the present time. Since it covers span of time that is measured in centuries, there are gaps in the discussion of the succession of leaders. But it is an enjoyable book to read. I wish I had read it before going to Istanbul some years ago. I would have been far more attuned to the architecture of the city and would have been alert to structures I saw but did not appreciate. It complements books on the history of the crusades. Thomas Madden walks the reader through numerous Byzantine plots that bring real meaning to the term.

I have a great interest in Greek, Roman and Byzantine history, as well an interest in the history of cities. I have read many histories on Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul. This book carefully describes the changes to this city and its people over the centuries in a way that you can visualize the real life of the great city of Istanbul (εις την πολη!, eis tin poli to the greeks). Each chapter capture the major changes to the city life and its environs. Great read!

If you're planning a trip to Istanbul, this book will add immeasurably to the experience. It covers the grand sweep of history from the ancient greek settlements to the present day in a much shorter book than other options I considered. I started reading a month prior to my trip and finished it while I was there (you will want to bring it with you for reference). Amidst the gripping historical story, Madden seemlessly gives the reader background on both the well known and lesser known (but fascinating) sites you can visit in this captivating city. It was invaluable and really was the key for me to fully enjoy, appreciate, and sense the historic atmosphere, wonder and mystery of this place on the shores of the Bosphorus. It turned a holiday into an adventure.

This is one of the books I bought while planning a family vacation to Istanbul last year. I have read it from cover to cover, and many portions more than once. Several months after our vacation, I still dip into it from time to time, and I never seem to tire of it – for this is a book which is as timeless and fascinating as the city it describes.Thomas Madden, the author of this book, is a professor of history at the Saint Louis University. As he explains in the preface, he loved Istanbul when he first visited that city in 1986, at the beginning of his doctoral studies in history. Since then, he says, he has spent much time in Istanbul and a good portion of his career researching and writing about it. As he writes in the Preface: “Today it is Istanbul. Yet across the centuries it has answered to many names: Byzantion, New Rome, Antoniniana, Constantinople, Queen of Cities, Miklagard, Tsargrad, Stamboul, Islambul, the Gate of Happiness, and perhaps most eloquently of all, “the City” … Although it has marked the passage of more than twenty-five centuries, Istanbul is no ruin of antiquity. It remains a vibrant, energetic, and exceedingly prosperous place. With nearly fifteen million inhabitants, Istanbul is today Europe’s largest city, and the fifth largest in the world…”Professor Madden begins this book with stories and myths of Greek colonists who settled on the shores of the Bosporus Strait in the seventh century BC. Subsequent chapters describe the Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern periods, up to the present day. The details are presented succinctly and there is balanced coverage of different periods.The author evidently has a very deep knowledge of the history of the region and he provides very detailed descriptions, but still manages to hold the lay reader’s attention by skipping over much that he considers less interesting. Chapter 5, for example, describes the battles between the Roman emperors Constantine and Licinius, the ultimate victory of the former and the founding of a Christian state with its capital at Constantinople, later described as Nova Roma (New Rome). This portion of the book seems quite interesting and I thought of learning more about these events from Wikipedia, but the information there was so dreary that it served as a tranquilizer!If the author had not been a historian, he would surely have been a successful novelist. His descriptions are truly magnificent, as the following three examples from different parts of the book will show:Emperor Justinian as described in Chapter 8: “The current emperor took a different approach, for he understood these low-born ruffians all too well. He was one of them… A short, attractive man with curly hair, Justinian had the friendly but firm demeanor of one who had come from humble beginnings. He had an appreciation for those who worked hard and overcame obstacles, and little patience for the preening elites of the senatorial aristocracy. His wife, Empress Theodora, was much the same…”The split between the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches in Chapter 11: “There was no mistaking the anger on the face of the cardinal. His face seemed to become darker with every step. Finally, he and his fellow clergy came to the iconostasis before the altar. They flung it open, entered the sanctuary, and mounted the marble steps to the jewel-encrusted altar. There Cardinal Humbert reached into his satchel and produced a rolled parchment threaded through with a papal seal. With great ceremony, he turned to the patriarch and slammed the parchment down on the altar. The, with a final look of disgust, he marched out the way he’d come…”The advent of the railway era in Chapter 21: “Suddenly the air was filled with whistles and the clatter of steel as the new iron visitor ground to a halt. Applause and cheers arose, accompanied by a small brass band to welcome the first arrival of this modern marvel. And it was a marvel. For, just sixty-eight hours earlier, this train had lurched out of Paris’s Gare de l’Est, sped across Europe, and now deposited its passengers in Constantinople’s newly built Sirkeci Station… At long last, the Orient Express had arrived.”Such dramatic descriptions – which seem to be eyewitness accounts – have been painstakingly reconstructed by the author after years of research. No wonder, he has earned the praise of not just reviewers, but his rival authors. Charles King, author of “Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul” says of this book: “Writing with verve and sympathy, Thomas F. Madden weaves scholarship, travel, and literature into a compelling narrative of crushing loss and unexpected renewal.”To conclude, this is a superb book if you want to read about Istanbul, past and present. It is highly recommended if you are planning to visit Istanbul and want a deeper understanding of the city than you can get from illustrated guidebooks. Alternatively, you can read and relish it simply for its literary merit and wealth of historical detail.Note: Professor Madden has written several books apart from this one. In the near future, I intend to read his book on Venice (a city which I have visited briefly and not particularly liked!) I fervently hope that someday the good professor would write about Delhi or Varanasi too.

Well put together and very readable. The breakdown of the interactions between the orthodox and roman catholic churches and the greeks, italians and turks and the effect of those dynamics on the history of the city were particularly well done. The treatment of the eastern roman empire after the fall of rome was also very informative. Ultimately, the book does a good job of treating thousands of years of history without all the different groups and players all blurring together, which is what makes an enjoyble history.

I have read about one third of the book. Lots of history and information written in a very approachable style. I am enjoying this book and think it will be very useful for a trip to Istanbul in the future.

Bought it before my trip to turkey. Great book filled with lot of information and history about the city.