Constantinople

This is a wonderful book. It fills in and explains vast amounts of history in interesting and often exciting ways. Roman, "Byzantine," Islamic, Turkish, Catholic, and other major cultures convulse, contend, and evolve. The amazing city of Constantinople-Istanbul and the long-lasting Roman Empire come alive along with their amazing traditions and people. It's a very enjoyable and enlightening read.

Very interesting read on this period of history. It has created a good picture for the audience on how this important war started and finished, as well as explaining the impact of it.

This book fills in many gaps in how history is taught in the west at school. It was very enlightening about Ottoman and Western Christian History. I am now reading his follow up book and that is also well written and informative.

Like all the other reviewers, this book is not just history but an immersive read. Even though we already knew the ending, I was still holding my Breath the whole time.

nice book

Brilliantly researched and a fascinating account from both sides of this event that changed history. I highly recommend this book.

If there is one book the interested reader needs to read about the siege of Constantinople, it is definitely this one! Crowley may not be a scholar, but his narrative seizes the reader by its realism and details in such a way that he or she will not be able to put away the book before reaching its end...In addition, his story is based on numerous contemporary sources, often written by eye witnesses. This is a wonderful book! However, the book contains some imperfections that I will briefly outline here in the hope they will be brought to the attention of the author: - Page 6: It is not true that "the name Turkey (was) unknown to them until borrowed from Europe to create the new Republic in 1923." For in 1908, a coup was staged against Abdul-Hamid II by officers belonging to a party called "Young Turkey". - Page 11: the Caliph's name is Muawiyah, with just one y. - Page 21: The name Rum is never used to mean Rome in Arabic. Ar-Rum is the name the Arabs gave to the Greeks. - Page 175: There need be no uncertainty as to the date of the eclipse of the moon. Fred Espenak's site gives the dates and exact times of all eclipses from 1999 B.C to 3000 AD. This one occurred on the evening of 22nd May, 1453. - Page 176, passim: "the haunting quartertones of the hymns" is a myth. To start with, there is no Oriental music that uses quartertone intervals: whole tones are flattened by one quartertone in some of the maqams(or modes). But even this is absent from Byzantine music, which uses plain Western modes, that can be played on the "white" keys of the piano... - Page 185: the "shouts of the faithful" are certainly not as quoted! Muslims declaration of faith and battle-cry is :"La ilaha illa-llah, Muhammad rasulu-llah", which means: "there is no god but Allah, Mohammad is his messenger". The translation given by Crowley is his own invention! - Page 217: Here Crowley is not to blame at all, since the mistake is in the Arabic saying of the Prophet at the top of the page. There is a diacritic sign which has been changed from the original, turning the meaning into "You will conquer Constantinople" instead of the correct "Constantinople will be conquered...". It seems this is the hadith that spurred the Muslim general Maslama bin Abdul Malek to attempt the siege of Constantinople in 717...

First of all the book is very readable. There are authors who can make even the most dramatic events look dull, but Roger Crowley evidently possesses a storytelling gift of a considerable proportions. The pace never slackens, before the crucial stages of the narrative there are contemplative pauses filled with sketches that feel very welcome and are artfully executed. The only problem is that the author has some preconceptions – or came to some conclusions or adopted some opinions that are not supported by the facts and events he describes. Evidently, Crowley wants to come across as an impartial narrator, he is not tiring of telling about the Turks not being as cruel as we thought them to be and the Ottomans’ – relative – religious tolerance, but there are so many scenes of unbridled cruelty towards enemy and – which is even more important – of Ottoman court and army being reigned by terror fuelled by systematic executions and wild outbursts of killing rage that these tropes feel like something inserted. Sometimes it feels that the data Crowley consumed was not yet digested properly at the time he sat at his writing table. The accents in this text are wobbly – a bit more than would have suited a complex panorama that has to leave a reader who is not a historian with some comprehensive ideas. Not slouching to simplification but still giving a reader something more distilled. But having said that I repeat: that’s a book definitely worth reading and it’s really engrossing.