Istanbul's history is a catalogue of change, not least of name, yet it has managed to retain its own unique identity. John Freely captures the flavour of daily life as well as court ceremonial and intrigue. The book also includes a comprehensive gazetteer of all major monuments and museums. An in-depth study of this legendary city through its many different ages from its earliest foundation to the present day - the perfect traveller's companion and guide.

Long-awaited new edition of the Blue Guide to this fascinating city, which straddles Europe and the Orient and whose history goes back to the days of ancient Greece. Superb coverage of all the major monuments, Classical, Christian and Islamic, with details on how to get around a busy city, what to eat and where to stay.John Freely was born in the United States. He is a long-term resident of Istanbul and has written a number of books on Greece and Turkey.

Este libro nos invita a un viaje en que la Ilíada y la Odisea nos servirán de guía para recorrer el mundo de Homero «desde Troya primero a través de la costa turca del Egeo y luego por las riberas del Mediterráneo, siguiendo las huellas de Odiseo cuando va a combatir en la Guerra de Troya y luego, tras pasar numerosas peripecias, de regreso a su patria con su familia en Ítaca». John Freely, que ha vivido muchos años en Grecia y en Turquía, y que tiene un buen conocimiento...

Aladdin’s Lamp is the fascinating story of how ancient Greek philosophy and science began in the sixth century B.C. and, during the next millennium, spread across the Greco-Roman world, producing the remarkable discoveries and theories of Thales, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, Galen, Ptolemy, and many others. John Freely explains how, as the Dark Ages shrouded Europe, scholars in medieval Baghdad translated the works of these Greek thinkers ...

In this funny and tender memoir, John Freely reflects on a remarkable life. Splitting his early childhood between the U.S. and Ireland inspired in Freely a lifelong desire to see the world and its inhabitants. At age six he settled in Brooklyn, where he spent a sometimes tumultuous boyhood amidst a large extended family: moving from house to house, the family’s belongings packed in an uncle’s hearse. Growing up poor, in his teens, Freely took whatever jobs he could when times got tough, al...

By the time he was six, John Freely had crossed the Atlantic four times. His childhood was spent on the mean streets of 1930s Brooklyn, where he scavenged for junk to sell and borrowed money for books; his first love being Homer's Odyssey. He was 15 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and 17 when he enlisted in the US Navy and embarked on the first great adventure of his life: joining a clandestine unit that helped the Kuomintang fight the Japanese. He served for two years, 96 days in combat ...

Throughout the 1960s, John Freely explored the alleys, hidden corners and monuments of Istanbul, in between teaching, to create a legendary guidebook with Hilary Sumner-Boyd. But all the passages that were too personal, too capricious, too idiosyncratic, too indulgent of eccentric personalities, too wrapped up in the love of mid-afternoon banter, too indulgent of musicians, dancers, gypsies, dervishes, drunks, beggars, fishermen, poets, fortune-tellers, folk-healers, mimics and prostitutes...

Mehr als 1 000 Jahre vor Kopernikus, Galilei und Newton haben viele Gelehrte das Wissen der Antike bewahrt, Naturerscheinungen beobachtet und experimentiert. In einer glänzenden Kulturgeschichte lässt John Freely zum ersten Mal die faszinierenden Entdeckungen der mittelalterlichen Menschen Revue passieren. Brillant weist er nach, dass – entgegen unseren Vorstellungen – die Grundlagen der modernen Wissenschaft und zahlreicher moderner Theorien wesentlich früher gelegt wurden, ja viele Erken...

This is the story of the House of Osman, the imperial dynasty that ruled the Ottoman Empire for more than seven centuries, an empire that once stretched from central Europe to North Africa and from Persia to the Adriatic. The capital of this empire was Istanbul, ancient Byzantium, a city that stands astride Europe and Asia on the Bosphorus. And it was in the great palace of Topkapi Sarayi that the sultans of this empire ruled. Inside the Seraglio - a classic of Ottoman history - takes us b...

Sultan Mehmet II, the Grand Turk, known to his countrymen as Fatih, 'the Conqueror', and to much of Europe as 'the present Terror of the World', was once the most feared and powerful ruler in the world. The seventh of his line to rule the Ottoman Turks, Mehmet was barely 21 when he conquered Byzantine Constantinople, which became Istanbul and the capital of his mighty empire. Mehmet reigned for 30 years, during which time his armies extended the borders of his empire halfway across Asia Mi...

Elegant erzählt John Freely das wechselvolle Leben eines der bedeutendsten Gelehrten der Renaissance. Dieses Buch vereinigt Biographie und spannende Wissenschaftsgeschichte.Die wohl wichtigste wissenschaftliche Entdeckung der Neuzeit, dass die Erde und die Planeten um die Sonne kreisen und die Erde einmal in 24 Stunden um ihre Achse rotiert, verdanken wir Kopernikus (1473-1543). Er war einer der größten Universalgelehrten aller Zeiten: Sprachwissenschaftler, Rechtsanwalt, Arzt, Dipl...

Long before the European Renaissance, while the western world was languishing in what was once called the 'Dark Ages', the Arab world was ablaze with the knowledge, invention and creativity of its Golden Age. This is the story of how Islamic science, which began with the translation of Greek manuscripts into Arabic in eighth-century Baghdad, preserved and enhanced the knowledge acquired from Greece, Mesopotamia, India and China. Through the astrologers, physicians, philosophers, mathematic...