A pleasing history of Byzantium/Constantinople and the with an emphasis on story rather than deconstruction or analysis. Framed by a trip to modern Istanbul with his son, Richard Fidler reconstructs the whole story of the Eastern Roman Empire until the final conquest of Constanstinople (and the absolute end of the Roman Empire) by the Turks in 1453. I didn't know a lot of it, so I found it fascinating. ( )

Interesting history of Istanbul Very easy to read ( )

Richard Fidler is said to have 'a passion for the rich history of the dazzling Byzantine Empire'. We have all heard snippets of parts of that history. It is clear that he has read and experienced a lot in that area, but is this the book to get a grasp of that (whole) history? For this novice, probably not.

I very much enjoy, and am a regular listener to) Fidler's hour long 'Conversations' on Radio National (Aust Broadcasting Corp), where he and his colleague Sarah Kanowski, interview someone as to their book, adventure or story (science, history, personal experience or whatever). Both hosts are past masters of steering the discussion, getting the best quotes out of the guest, and keeping the ball rolling. On many occasions, where the dialogue is focussed on a newly published book, I have subsequently purchased the book. Usually the book is worth while in its own right. Occasionally, it is obvious that Conversations has achieved to mine the totality of the gold as found in that book. But I cannot think of an example where the book represents less than the Conversation. This tells me that Fidler (and Kanowski) are great interviewers and story tellers in their own right.

But I do not think that those talents are necessarily those needed to provide a history covering the 1000 or so years of this story, even if that history is aimed at the lay reader.

This is not to say that this is not readable: Fidler has a good turn of phrase, many set pieces and bon mots. But it is almost that there are so many feasts, marriages, deaths (including murders and suicides), that this reader at least loses the train of progression over the history. It does not help that many of the players have similar names or change/ adopt new names on ascension to the crown (not that Fidler could do much about that!).

Two things that may have assisted this reader may have been:
- a chronology as to the many central characters to refer to. This could have been either stand alone or incorporated into the 3 1/2 page Timeline which focuses on events rather than people;
- some decent maps. There are a number of maps in the book, but most are double postage stamp size that appear at the beginning of a chapter and show the extent of Roman empire/the empire/the empire in exile (are all of these referencing the same empire?) at the time relevant to the chapter in question. But much of the history is also driven by the peoples of places from other areas (some in close proximity) and yet they are not identified, if indeed they are within the map in question.

Much is made of the notion that Fidler travelled to Istanbul with his 14-15 year old son, Joe to show him the history and to allow Fidler to refine his previous thinking and the shape of the book. I have no doubt that Fidler and Joe very much enjoyed the time they spent together (I expect many would be jealous of the opportunity that they had), but the occasional references to Joe and the questions each asked each other and their travels added little to actual history and was at most a somewhat clunky method of progressing the 'story', so much so that it could have been lost without the book losing anything. Of course, I cannot comment as to whether the experience of Fidler travelling with his son none the less added to the output of Fidler which culminates in this book.

Overall, if looking for a:
- serious history of the Byzantine Empire, probably not;
- an introduction/ lay person's version of that history, possibly yes, particularly if you are familiar and enjoy Fidler's works/outputs.

Not being an expert in this area of history, unfortunately I cannot recommend an alternative history, if in fact an introductory book of the totality of that history exists.

Big Ship

7 June 2022 ( )

A readable account of the Millenia when when Constantinople was a great city and centre of civilisation - jarringly interspersed with a travelogue describing Richard and 15 year old Joe's adventures in the city. ( )

What a lovely book. I was absolutely enchanted by Richard Fidler's story about Constantinople. And the way he interweaves his "father-son" trip to the ancient centre of the Roman World was a delight. What a great thing to do with your fourteen year old. I regret that I didn't do something like that myself. Must say that I loved the little vignette where they were both in a restaurant and the female owner approached their table and spoke to Richard in French. He drew on the recesses of his mind and dragged out a few phrases in French from school. His son, Joe, was blown away. "How come we've been here four days and you've never let on that you speak perfect Turkish?"
Somehow Richard manages to keep the story moving forward and not quite fall into the trap of getting the reader lost in the inevitable cycle of emperor, death, empress, marries warlord, struggle for succession, war, new emperor, and so on for a thousand years. Yes there is quite a lot of that but Richard manages to spice it up with intriguing stories and snippets where he and Joe find a link with the past.
There does seem to be an inherent design fault in a lot of the mediaeval walls where they had drains or water supplies or postern gates because in at least four instances in the story we read about attackers gaining access via one of those small doors or crawling through a drain and suddenly appearing inside the fortification. Certainly this was the end for the christian era of Constantinople.
Basically, a lovely, eminently-readable book. It was let down by the publisher, I feel. The pictures were too small and blurry. The maps were tiny and black and white that I found jumped in and out of focus like one of those optical illusions where you either see a vase or an old lady. So with the maps ...one struggles to figure out whether the dark part is the sea or the land. And I think it would have been helped by a couple of larger maps which showed some of the other places referred to. Also a time line somewhere. I felt the this was a real gap. And these would all appear to lie pretty much in the publisher's realm of responsibility.
Richard does bring out quite well the dastardly behaviour of the Venetians in all of this. They do not emerge from the story covered in glory; greedy, duplicitous, dishonest. untrustworthy....all of these things . It would be interesting to entertain the idea of a hypothetical where the crusaders did not sack another Christian city and Constantinople was left untouched by them. Maybe history might have looked quite different because it was clear that the crusader sacking and looting of the city did irreparable damage and weakened it massively. Still Constantinople was going to be an island in a muslim world and unlikely to survive forever in this situation.
I have some sympathy for historians who wrote off the Byzantines as degenerate and faction ridden ....and certainly they never seemed to have solved the issue of peaceful succession and just rule. And the ruling class generally seemed to be in it to maintain their style of living.
One horror that has remained with me is the casual reference to the "customary three days of looting" when a city is sacked. And that doesn't mean that just the gold chalices in the church are stolen.....it means raping the women and girls and taking the best looking off as slaves or concubines. It means murdering the men and sending the boys and anyone who might still be saleable off to the slave markets in Cairo. I found myself wondering about the break up of families in this process ..and wondering how people survived. If one was liable to suffer from depression ......wow... what could be more depression inducing that this. And yet, still people seemed to survive.
Then there were the Janissaries who were taken from their christian families as a kind of tax ....when between 6-14 years old, converted to islam, circumcised and then sent to military training school, then eventually becoming part of the Sultant's personal guard. (In the process of course, losing all their connections to families etc. I found myself wondering about how the boys themselves survived this and how their families left behind dealt with it. (I did learn that some of the Janissaries became very powerful figures and some were even sent back as governors to their countries of origin. But, all in all, it lends some strength to Thomas Hobbe's comment that the life of man would be "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". I don't think that I would like to swap my life for a life in Constantinople any time in that thousand year period.
Throughout it all , Richard manages to weave in charming stories of Joe and him making their own discoveries in modern Turkey, linking it with the past and the sheer pleasure of getting to know each other as a father and a son.
Really, a delightful book. Happy to give it 5 stars despite a few issues with the publishing side of thing. ( )