Scan barcode
novelideea's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
integrity744's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed the travelogue sections about the author and his son in Istanbul, some of the anecdotes of various historical figures, and of course the siege of Constantinople at the end.
The book covers a very long time period (roughly 1000 years), so it gets fairly repetitive with "Emperor X comes to power, reconquers Rome's old provinces of Italy/Spain/North Africa, loses them again due to incompetence/wars/misfortune". I realize that is what historically happened, but without having any interesting stories or details about the people during those time periods the pacing of the book dragged in these sections.
The book covers a very long time period (roughly 1000 years), so it gets fairly repetitive with "Emperor X comes to power, reconquers Rome's old provinces of Italy/Spain/North Africa, loses them again due to incompetence/wars/misfortune". I realize that is what historically happened, but without having any interesting stories or details about the people during those time periods the pacing of the book dragged in these sections.
overheat4600's review against another edition
4.0
It's a good overview, but a lot of detail (and time) is missed. A good summary of the History of Byzantium podcast.
Also the bits set in modern times weren't bad.
Also the bits set in modern times weren't bad.
oanh_1's review against another edition
3.0
Engagingly written potted history of Istanbul / Constantinople. Not at all a travelogue (& mostly I skipped over the ‘my son & I went here’ bits because I just was not interested, and they felt tacked on.)
harius_b's review against another edition
4.0
A good narrative of a bitter sweet chapter of human history. It is a four star work since its smaller details of history were unfortunately wrong, but its overall story telling is the sort which endears to anyone curious about the other thousand years of Roman history – which is not widely known of.
tasmanian_bibliophile's review against another edition
4.0
‘The story of how Constantinople flourished into greatness and expired in terrible violence is one of the strangest and most moving stories I know. I wanted my son to have that story too .’
In ‘Ghost Empire’, Richard Fidler and his son Joe take a trip through Constantinople’s history and touches on Istanbul’s present. Constantinople’s history is long: the western Roman empire came to an end in about 476 CE but the eastern Roman empire lasted until 1453 CE, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks and was renamed Istanbul. Like Richard Fidler, I find the Byzantine Empire fascinating. Why, I wonder, weren’t we taught more about this in school? Here was an empire that flourished for centuries, straddling Asia and Europe, an empire of contradictions. How was it formed? What were the secrets of its success, the causes of its failure?
‘Constantinople was an old and exhausted city. It had served as the capital of the eastern Roman empire for eleven hundred years, but by 1453 this was an empire in name only .’
This book is part history, part travelogue, and part reflection on a father-son relationship which (in the way of all such relationships) changes as child moves towards adulthood. These three components complement each other, and the book is more engaging as a consequence. I was reminded that while Notre Dame took more than a century to build, the Hagia Sophia was completed in five years and ten months . Richard Fidler’s descriptions and reflections may be as close as I’ll get to the Hagia Sophia, and I enjoyed reading them and imagining myself there.
‘A love of history can sometimes come across as a distraction from the more urgent business of the here and now. But without a grasp of the flow of events that have carried us to the present day, we are all a bit untethered from our place in time and space, condemned to live in an eternal present .’
At the end of their journey, Richard and Joe Fidler walked along the Theodosian Walls. The remains of these walls are reminders of both the might and the fall of Constantinople. While cities evolve, and empires rise and fall, children grow to adulthood and relationships change. At some stage, the present becomes the past.
Richard Fidler may not be an historian, but he is a very engaging storyteller. I enjoyed this book, with its history and anecdotes. Fascinating.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
In ‘Ghost Empire’, Richard Fidler and his son Joe take a trip through Constantinople’s history and touches on Istanbul’s present. Constantinople’s history is long: the western Roman empire came to an end in about 476 CE but the eastern Roman empire lasted until 1453 CE, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks and was renamed Istanbul. Like Richard Fidler, I find the Byzantine Empire fascinating. Why, I wonder, weren’t we taught more about this in school? Here was an empire that flourished for centuries, straddling Asia and Europe, an empire of contradictions. How was it formed? What were the secrets of its success, the causes of its failure?
‘Constantinople was an old and exhausted city. It had served as the capital of the eastern Roman empire for eleven hundred years, but by 1453 this was an empire in name only .’
This book is part history, part travelogue, and part reflection on a father-son relationship which (in the way of all such relationships) changes as child moves towards adulthood. These three components complement each other, and the book is more engaging as a consequence. I was reminded that while Notre Dame took more than a century to build, the Hagia Sophia was completed in five years and ten months . Richard Fidler’s descriptions and reflections may be as close as I’ll get to the Hagia Sophia, and I enjoyed reading them and imagining myself there.
‘A love of history can sometimes come across as a distraction from the more urgent business of the here and now. But without a grasp of the flow of events that have carried us to the present day, we are all a bit untethered from our place in time and space, condemned to live in an eternal present .’
At the end of their journey, Richard and Joe Fidler walked along the Theodosian Walls. The remains of these walls are reminders of both the might and the fall of Constantinople. While cities evolve, and empires rise and fall, children grow to adulthood and relationships change. At some stage, the present becomes the past.
Richard Fidler may not be an historian, but he is a very engaging storyteller. I enjoyed this book, with its history and anecdotes. Fascinating.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
spacestationtrustfund's review against another edition
1.0
Why did Constantinople get the works, indeed.
The question of when the Roman Empire fell, if it fell at all, is insanely complicated. You have to bring the ship of Theseus into the mix, and no one wants that; arguably, few cultures have truly "fallen" unless they genuinely ceased to exist due to some catastrophe either natural or anthropogenic. If the Roman Empire "fell," it was less of an explosion and more of an implosion: a nation collapsing inwards on itself. And if you're dividing "the" Roman Empire into East and West, arguing that the collapse of the Western Roman Empire took place circa 476 CE but the Eastern Roman Empire continued to thrive for centuries afterwards, how are we defining the Roman Empire? If the Empire "split," are both pieces still one entity? At what point did the Roman transform into the Byzantine?
This book is half pop history and half travelogue memoir, but pretty entertaining either way. That said, there were a couple of issues I had with the book. First of all, the book spends quite a bit of time stressing how unfortunate it is that the Romans of Constantinople have been largely lost to history in the eyes of Westerners, how tragic it is that only the Western half of the Roman Empire is studied by Westerners, etc., but the entire book is told from the perspective of—well, Richard Fidler is Australian, so I don't know if he really counts as being a Westerner, even if he is part of the anglosphere, but I guess I also don't know why people in Australia would be spending more time than average on studying the history of a culture halfway around the world? Anyway, I just thought it was funny that Fidler talked a big game about how the Western world doesn't care about the history of Constantinople, but then he's just some white guy touring the city and telling its history for it. Very helpful of you, Mr. Fidler, a non-historian and non-specialist, to speak on this topic.
The other major issue I had with the book, and Fidler's approach in general, is that the focus was predominantly on the Roman influence on Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire in general, with little to no attention paid to the ancient Greek influence. (Don't only focus on the Western world, Fidler is arguing, also focus on places like Constantinople... 's importance to the West.) Fidler acts as though Byzantium is a little-known and less-studied city, which is far from accurate; even setting aside the fact that many, many scholars have written extensively about the Byzantine Empire on its own merit, the relationship between Byzantium and other cultures (including such notable figures as Alexander III of Macedon, for example) has been thoroughly studied. Focusing only on the Roman influence on Byzantium et. al. is ignorant at best and willfully dishonest at worst—and I'm hardly assuming the worst with no evidence here; Fidler says so himself. Quite early on in the book, he notes:
Don't worry; it gets worse: Fidler then continues by saying that he "[has] no Latin, Greek or Arabic, and so I have had to read the original narratives in translation." Ha, ha. Isn't it just so funny that this white guy who only speaks English can't tell the difference between names as different as "Monomachus" and "Porphyrogenitus"? Isn't it just hilarious? Why is Richard Fidler the one writing this book, again? I can't tell the difference between most of the guys in Hollywood, but I'm not writing a book about them.
Fidler does not spend much time or page length on the Greek half of the Byzantine Empire, which disappointed but did not surprise me, given that Fidler, an obvious non-specialist, also did not spend much time or page length on history beyond the very generic. Most of the information contained within this book could be found on a Wikipedia page or two. There are many far, far better books on the Byzantine Empire, some of them even written by actual experts, or even Byzantines themselves. I do not see why this book was necessary.
I did like this quote though:
The question of when the Roman Empire fell, if it fell at all, is insanely complicated. You have to bring the ship of Theseus into the mix, and no one wants that; arguably, few cultures have truly "fallen" unless they genuinely ceased to exist due to some catastrophe either natural or anthropogenic. If the Roman Empire "fell," it was less of an explosion and more of an implosion: a nation collapsing inwards on itself. And if you're dividing "the" Roman Empire into East and West, arguing that the collapse of the Western Roman Empire took place circa 476 CE but the Eastern Roman Empire continued to thrive for centuries afterwards, how are we defining the Roman Empire? If the Empire "split," are both pieces still one entity? At what point did the Roman transform into the Byzantine?
This book is half pop history and half travelogue memoir, but pretty entertaining either way. That said, there were a couple of issues I had with the book. First of all, the book spends quite a bit of time stressing how unfortunate it is that the Romans of Constantinople have been largely lost to history in the eyes of Westerners, how tragic it is that only the Western half of the Roman Empire is studied by Westerners, etc., but the entire book is told from the perspective of—well, Richard Fidler is Australian, so I don't know if he really counts as being a Westerner, even if he is part of the anglosphere, but I guess I also don't know why people in Australia would be spending more time than average on studying the history of a culture halfway around the world? Anyway, I just thought it was funny that Fidler talked a big game about how the Western world doesn't care about the history of Constantinople, but then he's just some white guy touring the city and telling its history for it. Very helpful of you, Mr. Fidler, a non-historian and non-specialist, to speak on this topic.
The other major issue I had with the book, and Fidler's approach in general, is that the focus was predominantly on the Roman influence on Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire in general, with little to no attention paid to the ancient Greek influence. (Don't only focus on the Western world, Fidler is arguing, also focus on places like Constantinople... 's importance to the West.) Fidler acts as though Byzantium is a little-known and less-studied city, which is far from accurate; even setting aside the fact that many, many scholars have written extensively about the Byzantine Empire on its own merit, the relationship between Byzantium and other cultures (including such notable figures as Alexander III of Macedon, for example) has been thoroughly studied. Focusing only on the Roman influence on Byzantium et. al. is ignorant at best and willfully dishonest at worst—and I'm hardly assuming the worst with no evidence here; Fidler says so himself. Quite early on in the book, he notes:
I wish Byzantine names were easier to follow, that it were easier to distinguish between Constantine Monomachus, Constantine Porphyrogenitus and Constantine Paleologus. I wish the emperors had snappier names like ‘Sven Forkbeard’ or ‘Ethelred the Unready,’ but they don’t. I have tried to simplify and contract them wherever I could.Cool. Love to see it.
Don't worry; it gets worse: Fidler then continues by saying that he "[has] no Latin, Greek or Arabic, and so I have had to read the original narratives in translation." Ha, ha. Isn't it just so funny that this white guy who only speaks English can't tell the difference between names as different as "Monomachus" and "Porphyrogenitus"? Isn't it just hilarious? Why is Richard Fidler the one writing this book, again? I can't tell the difference between most of the guys in Hollywood, but I'm not writing a book about them.
Fidler does not spend much time or page length on the Greek half of the Byzantine Empire, which disappointed but did not surprise me, given that Fidler, an obvious non-specialist, also did not spend much time or page length on history beyond the very generic. Most of the information contained within this book could be found on a Wikipedia page or two. There are many far, far better books on the Byzantine Empire, some of them even written by actual experts, or even Byzantines themselves. I do not see why this book was necessary.
I did like this quote though:
Professional historians approach such stories with great caution, knowing there will certainly be many fake baubles in the pile. Some accounts will be almost entirely untrue. All will be somewhat distorted according to the prejudices of the author and the political requirements of the moment. Different accounts must be weighed against each other, as well as the documentary evidence and the archaeological record. Sometimes the surviving records are scant and confusing.You don't fucking say.
jocelyn_sp's review against another edition
3.0
Pleasant overview history of Constantinople, full of interesting, surprising, well-told anecdotes. Nicely interspersed with father-son travelogue
corinnemantis's review against another edition
funny
informative
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
5.0
fionafindingfifth's review against another edition
5.0
I’ve always wanted to travel to Constantinople. And after reading this book, I feel even more educated about its history.