Emilia Dudzinska itibaren Olho-D'Água do Borges - RN, Brazil

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11/21/2024

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Emilia Dudzinska Kitabın yeniden yazılması (10)

2019-03-06 16:40

Eğlenceli Bilim - Yer Altı-Frank Littek TrendKitaplar Kütüphanesi

Tarafından yazılmış kitap Tarafından: İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları

I bought this book on the road back from Istanbul, a city I enjoyed very much during a week-long visit. Istanbul: The Imperial City by John Freely is exactly what I should have been reading before visiting: it is a history of the city sprinkled with descriptions of the buildings and landmarks still visible at the middle of the 1990s. We are also given excerpts from some of the most important writings on the topic of Istanbul, especially from the old writs. In active, somewhat repetitive prose, Freely exposes the two and a half millenia of the wonderful city of the Golden Horn, Istanbul, or Constantinople, or Byzantium. Founded by the colonist Byzas of Megara around 660BC, Byzantium made use of advanced military engineering to protect itself for centuries from a large number of wannabe conquerors: Persians, Thracians, Scytes, Macedonians, Athenians, etc. It is early in its history the Byzantium inaugurated its infamous treasonous behavior, with switches of allegiance and murdered leaders common. For example, around 440BC Byzantium revolts against Athens, to whom it was paying tribute, and is besieged by troops from the Athenian League; the siege ends when the pro-Athenian faction lets down ladders from the besieged walls. (The Byzantine generals agreement is, today, a famous and difficult problem of consistency in distributed systems/computer science. In this problem, the goal is to agree on the order to either attack or retreat, assuming that one or several of the generals, but not all, are traitors.) This book raised a lot of memories from my history classes. Here ... We learn about the establishment of Constantinople (in Greek Constantinopolis, or the City of Constantine), the town that effectively quadrupled the size of the ancient Byzantium while maintaining its core in the Golden Horn. We read about the long internal struggle for power of a dying Roman Empire; names like Theodosius, Julian, Justinian, and others. We see how Haghia Sophia (Aya Sofia, Hagia Sofia, the Church of the Divine Wisdom) gets built and repeatedly rebuilt. We observe the Cristian Church being split into Roman Catholics and Greek Orthodox. We conquer the city with the Crusaders (the first fall) and the Ottomans (the second fall). We understand the Dark Ages and the medieval world. Overall, I loved reading about the places I've just seen. I felt at home with many of the names, peoples, and places. I was tested thoroughly on my knowledge of history, and I was not disappointed to see what has left from my gymnasium lessons. I was delighted to observe how many words I knew from childhood were of Greek or Turkish origin (ayazma, kestane, kadin, ...) If it wasn't for the rather long and somewhat unintelligible list of names, the rather superficial analysis of the causes of various events, and the too long excerpts in the latter parts of the book, it would have been a 5-star. Thumbs up, recommended reading for visitors of Istanbul!

Okuyucu Emilia Dudzinska itibaren Olho-D'Água do Borges - RN, Brazil

Kullanıcı, bu kitapları portalın yayın kurulu olan 2017-2018'de en ilginç olarak değerlendirdi "TrendKitaplar Kütüphanesi" Tüm okuyucuların bu literatürü tanımalarını tavsiye eder.