Historian Bettany Hughes is a fine storyteller and the triple biography of Byzantium, Constantinople and Istanbul is world history enmeshed in one desirable location. From the Greeks at Byzantium about 600BC to the Romans at Constantinople in AD300 to the Muslim city of the 1500s onwards and the Istanbul of modern Turkey, the layers of history are excavated in fine detail.
Along the way dozens of intruders found their way to this spot, which guards the entrance to the Black Sea. Persians, Vandals, Goths and the Crusaders all made their mark at various times and the modern city bears traces of them all. The author digs deep to find what they left behind and explain where the signs of the city's centuries of invasion can be found.
Read rest of review by Jim Sullivan here @ Otago Daily News
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