
Istanbul by John Freely
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.
Freely, John: - Born in Brooklyn, New York, of Irish parents, John Freely (1926-2017) was brought up in New York City and Inch on the Dingle Peninsula in the west of Ireland. A lifelong traveler, he had crossed the Atlantic four times by the time he was six. He enlisted in the US Navy at seventeen in 1944, serving on missions in Burma, India and China, and married Dolores (Toots) Stanley after being demobbed in 1947. He received a doctorate in nuclear physics from New York University and did post-doctoral work at All Souls College, Oxford. He moved to Istanbul with his family to take up a teaching post at the American Robert College in 1960 and remained there for most of the rest of his life. Physicist, teacher, and author of more than sixty books of travel, history, and science, most famously the seminal guidebook 'Strolling Through Istanbul' (1972), he was a noted raconteur as well as writer, with a prodigious memory for poetry and song as well as facts and dates. He continued writing to the very end of his life: among his last books are three volumes of memoirs, 'The Art of Exile: A Vagabond Life' (2016), 'The House of Memory: Reflections on Youth and War' (2017), and the newly published 'Stamboul Ghosts' (2018).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780670859726 |
| ISBN 10 | 0670859729 |
| Title | Istanbul |
| Author | John Freely |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Year published | 1996-11-07 |
| Number of pages | 440 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |