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A review by integrity744
Ghost Empire by Richard Fidler
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.