Istanbul: The Imperial City

This is being used a text for the History of Turkey in a local junior college. it is highly prized a source.

Prof. Freely has walked the streets of Istanbul a lot more than many of the locals and has a good grasp of the cultural and historical significance of this great city.

I was lucky enough to be his student, and then assistant, at Bogazici University along the Bosphorous, old Robert Academy, where he taught Physics for many years. He has an excellent eye for catching that little strange detail that many Istanbullians take for granted but what may be a direct link to either the Ottoman Imperial past or all the way back to Romans.

They did not call themselves Byzant by the way, and Ottomans did not call them Byzantians either. Both knew they were Romans, Eastern Roman to be exact. Numerous European rulers over the centuries have tried to assume the "Roman Emperor" title and dreamt of re-creating the glory of the Roman Empire, so they have usually found it hard to acknowledge the true heritage of Constantinople.

This is a little more than just a street guide, but not exactly a historical treatise either. Thank you Prof. Freely.

Having lived in Istanbul for 4 years, I was more interested in finding out more about the Byzantium history since the rest of
it (post 1453); I have studied immensely through out my school years. Unfortunately, Freely did not exceed or even meet my expectations, the book was more like a tourist guide and from what I gather from the reviews, most of the people who gave it a good rating are foreigners who went to Istanbul for vacation and sightseeing..

The historical facts consist mostly of some dates and mere numbers regarding population, mosques and some prominent sultans. There was no satisfactory story telling about the life outside the palace in which it is claimed that 26 different ethnicities were living side by side. Commoners, gypsies, peasants, jugglers, tumblers, thieves, dwarves, horses, elephants were some of the inhabitants that gave Istanbul her true color.

As in several books written with a similar approach, the "harem" in the Topkapi Palace is a whole chapter by itself, yet, the entire chapter is devoted to totally irrelevant history of such and such sultan died and the son became the new sultan and then he was replaced by the next one and so on...

The only plus in this book are the sketches of some arthictectural marvels in the last pages which you do not have to buy the book to be fascinated!

A little too detailed for what I was after, but an excellent history of this wonderful city.

In october of this year i'll be visiting Istanbul so i decided to read this book to increase my knowledge of this city and i wasnt dissapointed. I love the authors account of Istanbul since it's beginning.I ilke the way he relates how all the major buildings and monuments in Istanbul came to be and its relation with the person who build them and its relation to the city.I liked the last section which summarises the major monuments and a little bit of it's history.I recommend this book to anyone traveling to Turkey