Experimental Blog # 223

Comments and notes on "Istanbul" - A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes

This book contains over 600 pages of text and maps. In addition to this there are 29 pages of timeline, 66 pages of notes, 58 pages of bibliography, and 37 pages of index. It is indeed a "colossal undertaking ... a notable achievement."

"Legend has it that{in 657 BC} Byzas from Megara founds Byzantion as a Greek colony on the west side of the Bosphorus."
"Byzantion is renamed Constantinople"{in 330 AD}.
"After the sack of Rome{in 410 AD by Goths led by Alaric} and the collapse of the machine whose constituent parts - the army, tax collectors, loyalty to an idea - had kept the pax Romana operative, the West fractured."
"On 16 July AD 1054 < > Thus began the so-called Great Schism. The impasse would not be resolved until 910 years later in 1964."

A chapter is entitled "The City of Crusades AD 1090 - 1203"; of which there were four.

In 1453 the Ottoman Empire led by Mehmed II conquers Constantinople; which is now also called Kostantiniyye or Islam-bol.

"After the fall of Constantinople in AD 1453 it was Russia which took on the mantle of Orthodoxy."

In AD 1683 occurs the Great Siege of Vienna by the Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed IV; but they are defeated.
"After the Viennese defeat{that is the Ottoman defeat at Vienna} < > The Russians, hearing reports of Ottoman distress, set off from Moscow with a million{!!} horses, 300,000 infantry and 100,000 cavalry." Don't these numbers sound too high to be true?

However, the author's many travels and other descriptions to the places, sites, and museums that she writes about make her book exceptionally interesting and vivid.