Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities - Bettany Hughes

Written by Bettany Hughes
Read by Bettany Hughes
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Hachette Book Group
Release date: October 19, 2017
Duration: 24:35:48

Istanbul has long been a place where stories and histories collide, where perception is as potent as fact.

From the Koran to Shakespeare, this city with three names—Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul—resonates as an idea and a place, real and imagined. Standing as the gateway between East and West, North and South, it has been the capital city of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. For much of its history it was the very center of the world, known simply as “The City,” but, as Bettany Hughes reveals, Istanbul is not just a city, but a global story.

In this epic new biography, Hughes takes us on a dazzling historical journey from the Neolithic to the present, through the many incarnations of one of the world’s greatest cities—exploring the ways that Istanbul’s influence has spun out to shape the wider world. Hughes investigates what it takes to make a city and tells the story not just of emperors, viziers, caliphs, and sultans, but of the poor and the voiceless, of the women and men whose aspirations and dreams have continuously reinvented Istanbul.Written with energy and animation, award-winning historian Bettany Hughes deftly guides readers through Istanbul’s rich layers of history. Based on meticulous research and new archaeological evidence, this captivating portrait of the momentous life of Istanbul is visceral, immediate, and authoritative—narrative history at its finest.

“Bettany Hughes hits every high point and tiny detail of that story. She has created and narrated several BBC documentaries, experiences that serve her well in this project. Her writing has a personality all its own, and her lively, emotive reading highlights her scholarship, her passion for her subject, and her agile way with the English language. Her fluid voice does, however, occasionally dip into a low register, making the ends of some sentences less than clear. But given the book’s 24-hour span, these are minor deficits.”…. � AudioFile