Istanbul: The Imperial City
By (Author) John Freely
Penguin Books Ltd
Penguin Books Ltd
26th February 1998
26th February 1998
United Kingdom
General
Non Fiction
Travel writing
Places and peoples: general and pictorial works
914.96180439
Paperback
448
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 32mm
395g
This is a biography of the city originally known as Byzantium, later renamed Constantinople and now called Istanbul. With a population of 10 million, it's the largest city in Turkey, adorned with splendid monuments of both Ottoman and Byzantium empires. This book gives an account of the city's history from the time of its founding up to the present day along with notes on the monuments that have survived from the successive epochs of its past. It's a biography rather than a political or architectural city with the emphasis on the life of the people and of the city.
John Freely first went to Istanbul in 1960 to teach physics at Robert College, now the University of the Bosphorus, to which he returned in 1993. His first book was STROLLING THROUGH ISTANBUL and he has subsequently written more than twenty other travel books including CLASSICAL TURKEY, STROLLING THROUGH ATHENS, and STROLLING THROUGH VENICE.