This guidebook is great at what it does, but is otherwise limited.

It's a really excellent reference to the history, churches, and monuments of Istanbul, often going into exhaustive detail such as what day (On April 23, 1542 at 12 noon, etc.) something happened. (It must be said, however, that Freely gets a bit enthusiastic about some very minor monuments and mosques which do not seem to really deserve it.)

It has great information on all the major and minor mosques and other monuments around Istanbul, including maps and diagrams. In this sense, I found it very useful on my trip.

As a general guidebook, however, it falls short. This is not the author's interest, and lists of hotels, restaurants and bars are thrown in almost as an afterthought. There isn't any discussion of the character of different neighborhoods, nor is there much information on where to go, what to see, etc. after the museums and monuments are closed for the evening.

So I would recommend that people get this fine book as a reference to the history and architecture, museums, etc. and get another guidebook as well.

My wife and I just returned from our trip to Istanbul. The Blue Guide was like having our own guide. Often, when reading portions to her, some other English speaking folks wandered up to and asked "say that again." On our cruise up the Bosphorus, it made the villages, the castles, palaces some alive. This is my second Blue Guide (the first was on Vienna)purchase and they will become a part of our travelling "necessities."

Modern-day Istanbul -- crowded, dirty and noisy, but with a dazzling beauty all its own -- is the sum of twenty-seven centuries of history, and no guidebook captures the city in all its glory better than this one. It's almost a street-by-street history of the city, indispensable for the independent-minded traveler who really wants to know the place. Wandering around with this book in hand (or even getting lost, which I've done more than once) is pure joy. My own copy of the previous edition is showing the strains of four separate trips to Istanbul -- it's flecked with bits of pistachio shells, the cover is stained from having too many glasses of raki set on it, and several pages have buckled from splashes on the Bosphorus ferries -- but I'll never get rid of it.

John Freely's erudition is amazing, but never pretentious. His histories in this book of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires are the best short accounts of those civilizations I've encountered anywhere. He also emphasizes historical sites that other guidebooks seem to overlook, such as the Kariye Camii mosaics, the Yerebatan Saray (underground cistern) and SS. Sergius and Bacchus Church, all of which are absolute gems little visited by tourists. I can't imagine the amount of research that went into the writing of this book.

At last count I owned twenty-four of the Blue Guides. All are excellent, but this is my favorite. There is simply no better guide to Istanbul. I hope that Freely's "Istanbul: The Imperial City," which I have just purchased, is as good.

The story of Constantinople's fall is epic. It was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, which was, in actuality, the eastern half of the Roman Empire -- an empire which, according to many history books, "fell" in 476 A.D. In fact, only the western half of the empire succumbed to the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Franks, and Vandals -- the eastern half of the empire survived for a thousand years, referred to as "Byzantine" by historians about the time of the Emperor, Heraclius (610-641 A.D.), in deference to the fact that by that time the empire was largely Greek-speaking, and "Byzantium" was the original name of the site upon which Constantinople was built. Runciman tells the fascinating story of the fall of the city straightforwardly; he provides ample footnotes for the novice, and the volume also contains a number of useful maps. The book is especially good at capturing the impending sense of doom that enveloped Constantinople as the 15th century wore on - thanks to the religious schism between Latin and Orthodox Christianity, no help would be forthcoming from the West, and one can only admire the steely resolve of the last Byzantine Emperor, Constantine XI, who resolved to resist the onslaught of the Ottoman Turks, despite the Sultan's generous terms if the city would surrender. This is a concise and eminently readable account of a turning point in the history of the Western World. Highly recommended!

Runciman's account of the Fall of Constantinople is an excellent book to read. Beginning with the Ottoman advance into Europe in the later 14th century, and ultimately ending with the City's capture in 1453, he weaves a story that is both historically accurate as well as emotionally moving.

We read about the desperate attempts by the last Byzantine Emperors to look for help from an increasingly indifferent West. We note the internal strife between the Chrisitian kingdoms of the Balkans, both Latin and Orthodox, that created disunity and allowed the Ottoman sultans to conquer territories one by one until Constantinople was completely surrounded and isolated. We also hear of the sad accounts of the conditions within this once great City that was hailed as the Eye of all the World. By the time of the City's capture, it was a hollow shell of its former glory.

It is the last chapter in the thousand year history of Byzantium, and all its characters appear to face a noble and heroic end defending their capital. Yet, the Ottomans, Runciman says, brought a new breath of vitality to Constantinople and its conquered territories. The City was rebuilt, and the Greeks survived as best they could, up until the early 20th century. Runciman also suggests the Ottoman Turks were the better conquererors than the Latins might have been since the Greeks and Slavs were allowed to keep their Orthodox faith and culture, something that might have been forcibly lost under the Papal West.

With superb writing, excellent narration, and great historical analysis, Runciman has written a fantastic book, and one that has been the standard for decades now. Highly recommended

Sir Steven Runciman was one of the English language's (if not the world's) leading scholars of the Crusades and the Eastern Roman Empire, and this brief but powerful book shows why. Norwich and his popular-history volumes of Byzantine history may be a more contemporary, personality-driven look at the story, but nobody can match, in my opinion, Runciman for both breadth of scholarship and elegant, intelligent, and highly readable prose.

Runciman shows that the fall of Constantinople to the Turks on May 29, 1453 (550 years ago today!) was both inevitable and of mostly marginal historical significance (except, of course, to the people of the city itself). It had always seemed to me an event of epochal importance -- the final slamming shut of history's pages on the Roman Empire. But literally in the book's first sentence, Sir Steven disabuses us of this notion, or that the fall marked the close of the Middle Ages. Indeed, "only the Papacy and a few scholars and romanticists had been genuinely shocked at the thought of the great historic Christian city passing into the hands of the infidel" (p. 179). For the most part, it was part of the rising tide of Turkish conquest, alarming in a general way, but not immediately catastrophic to the dying empire's fickle co-religionists in the West.

Runciman's narrative is engrossing, full of political tension, military conflict, and the religious disputes that always colored Byzantine history. His characterizations are insightful, his descriptions colorful, his writing elegiac -- at times even poetic -- well-sourced (both Christian and Muslim authorities are consulted), and frequently entertaining, even when discussing a sad and even horrific topic. His larger works may not be to everyone's taste (for topic more than style), but a short work like this one, on an interesting and oft-neglected theme, is a worthwhile read for any student of history. Highly recommended.

Here Lord Kinross has created quite an achievement in historical writing, summing up the 600 years of the Ottoman empire in one concise, easy to read, yet expansive narrative. Kinross shows a clear understanding of large historical, cultural, and political trends that results in a narrative that is sweeping in its scope. Kinross is clearly influenced by Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" and even uses that phrase a few times in this book, merely replacing the word "Roman" with "Ottoman." Hence while Kinross is commenting on the minute details of various time periods throughout Ottoman history, he also keeps you appraised of the long-term trends that would result first in the empire's rise to greatness and then its slow downfall. One weakness of this method though, is the frequent use of the "beginning of the end" or "it was all downhill from here" refrains, which was also noticed by another reviewer here on Amazon. In fact, Kinross first brings this up way back at the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, nearly four centuries before the empire finally dissolved, although it's true that the empire had reached its peak at that point. Another possible point of contention with this book is Kinross' coverage of the empire's foreign relations, with most space going to the Europeans to the west and later the Russians to the north. There is very little about the empire's relations with the Persians to the east, and almost nothing about the Arabs and Africans to the south. However this is probably more the result of the differing amounts of documentation and evidence available in each area, rather than any bias on the author's part. Meanwhile Parts VI and VII really drag with minute details on the political wranglings of the European powers in relation to the empire. But those are just some minor weaknesses, which are more than made up for by the strengths described above, as well as Kinross' occasional forays into colorful descriptions of the lifestyles of the royals and their subjects, and coverage of the empire's culture and architecture.

Finally, one reviewer here for some self-serving reason slammed this book for failing to cover the massacres of the Armenians. This is 100% false, as Kinross not only covers three different periods in which the Turks tried to smash the Armenians, but effectively places the blame where it's due. That reactionary critic both failed to read the book and failed to realize that it supports his position. He/she also claims that the fall of the empire is left out, supposedly missing an entire half of the book. Figure that one out.

In reading the previous reviews before I decided to write this, I concede that if you are indeed very knowledgible on Turkish history, this will not add very much to your academic base.

And in trying to deal with 622 years of history in just over 600 pages, choices had to be made on what to describe in detail and what he had to either gloss over. Except for the ignorant statement on the Armenian persecution, all comments regarding how most emphasis was on the European part of the Empire with little attention on the Middle East and North Africa are true.

But what this book does for you is make you want to LEARN MORE. This book convinced me to by the Byzantium - Decline and Fall from John Julius Norwich, which covered much of the same period in this books Parts I and II. And that book has made me want to expand further.

The best parts of the book for me were Parts I, II, and III which takes us to the "Zenith of the Empire" with Sultan Suleiman's death. Highlights include the sieges and eventual capture of Constantinople, the effect of Timur, and the detail of the campaigns of Suleiman and the wonderful descriptions of the battles that turned history (including the failed Vienna sieges).

As another reviewer said (taking the words out of my mouth), Parts VI and VII did drag a bit - likely because stories in the late empire pale in the comparison with the early chapter. But this in no way should deminish this books value in your library.

As a starter history book, the reading is easy, sketches and maps very helpful, and many sections enthralling. It is with this type of reader that I give this 5 stars.

This is a history of the Ottoman Empire (as might be evident from its title). Many history books have the flaw of being informative, however dull and boring. I am not a professional historian, and usually I am not interested in all the marginal remarks and references. Fortunately, this is not one of those history books. Although this is a serious history book, it saves the lay reader from all the marginal remarks. This is a beautiful history, and it actually reads like a thriller. The author does not hide his personal evaluation and opinion. For example, he does not hesitate to criticize Sultans Selim II and Murad III and root the long and inevitable decline of the Empire with their lack of skills to govern the Empire. Especially pay attention to the chapter on the fall of Constantinople, and to the scattered descriptions of sieges throughout the book.

Storm
By Allen Noren

I am an avid motorcyclist, but I found this story very frustrating. It is not so much about motorcycling or traveling as it is about ego and obsession. The author is driven by his compulsion to complete The Trip, despite the horrendous, record-breaking stormy weather, over 6000 miles of northern European roadways. He presses on, focused on all the details of the challenge of coping with a bike in the most extreme weather conditions. But his girlfriend, the pillion passenger, has nothing to do but suffer. She has nothing to occupy her mind but resentment. Cold, wet, allergy riddled, bored, pissed, frustrated... this is what we see of her. She exists on this trip, to hear Noren tell it, like another natural curiosity to be observed while traveling, like the lakes, seasides, forests and of course the storms.

This book breaks down at the same place that their relationship breaks down. He is a rider, she is a passenger. Never will the passions of the two be comparable. Noren never gets to this point, though. The entire story is told through his obsessive self-centered perspective. We barely get a glimpse of her thinking, and when we do, it is interpreted through Noren's crazed compulsion: she betrays him by losing her connection to The Trip. But he avoids the point that a pillion passenger is passive and detached from the essence of motorcycling, with no control, and a feeling of literal and figurative coat-tailing to the rider. It IS his trip, and she becomes ever more an afterthought to him, as her alienation metamorphoses into her own obsession to have the trip just be over.

It is inevitable that the reader grows ever more sympathetic to her plight, and ever more convinced that he is little more than a neurotic jerk.

All that said, the writing is quite good. The book reads quickly. The style is engaging and the observations are unique and interesting. Noren does an excellent job of detailing the inner workings of a motorcyclists' mindset.... As our loved ones will attest, we are all a little obsessive, a little insane.

The lessons for me: avoid taking my wife on very long trips as a passenger (something I already knew). Make your mate get her own bike, so she can see the trip through the same eyes that you do. Oh, and buy good rain gear and heated clothing, too!

A friend gave me this book as a gift and it sat on my desk for several months. Admittedly I was put off by the motorcycling aspect, but I'm sad now that that stopped me from opening it sooner. Last Sunday night I was going to file the book in my bookshelf but decided to read the first page before I did so. Needless to say I couldn't put it down. It's a wonderful tale of adventure, a dream and its reality, love, and, yes, ego. The story transcends the motorcycle and in that way is much more than a biker book. The motorcycling aspects are excellent, however, because the author is not one of those leather clad oafs with a humongous midlife crisis on his back. Rather, the descriptions are beautifully written and invite the reader to feel what it was like too. Well done.

I waited 4 months to start this book. The idea was to save it for a trip of my own and bring it with me on the road. I did. It was a bittersweet compliment to my travels and was so rich and wonderful that I almost forgot to soak in the landscape, folks, and energies of my CA to Seattle trek (granted, a small trip in comparison to Allen and Suzanne's Baltic Sea journey). Storm is one of those rare "pass-this-book-around" gems.

This is both a book on history and an excellent guide of one of the world's most wonderful cities. Dr. FREELY first takes you through the history of the city and then provides a very complete, concise list of monuments and museums.

If you are planning to visit Istanbul and want to say that you really (but really!) saw the city, this is one of the books to buy!

This is a delightful combination of history and guide, addressing the history of Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul from the earliest Greek settlements to the present day. Mr.Freely provides a short but very readable account of the reigns of every Emperor and Sultan (and regardless of origin or religion the vast majority were a ghastly but entertaining bunch!) and sets them in the context of the growth of the city and of its principle monuments. The book is worth purchasing for the guide section alone, which is at the end of the book, and which provides excellent short descriptions of al the main architectural features and archaeological remains. This reader's only regret is that the book had not yet been published when he spent significant periods in Istanbul, for it is not only unique in concept and format, but also superior to any other book he has encountered as a guide to this wonderful city. It can be thoroughly recommended for anybody making a visit to Istanbul, however short. Readers whose interest is whetted by the chapters on pre-conquest Constantinople will find that John Julius Norwich's splendid three volume-history of Byzantium provides the extra, and fascinating, detail they crave.

John Freely's book "Istanbul," takes a look at the city from its founding by Greek colonists, to the mordern day. Freely is an eloquent writer who places particular emphasis on the location of the city as it stands astride the Bosphorous strait and the Golden Horn. The history is in depth and informative, with both major and minor events chronicled in this book. Freely draws the reader in with a wonderful history. In the final section of this book, he has written a mini-guidebook, which features what, where, and how of what to see in Istanbul.

This book, written by a well known Canadian historian, is an attempt to gain perspective on some of the horrors of the 20th century through a combination of family memoir and history. The author, a specialist on modern European history, is also an emigre from Latvia whose family escaped to Canada in the aftermath of the Second World War. Eksteins uses his family history and the history of Latvia as a way of capturing many of the horrible events of the 20th century. The disasters of the First World War, the Russian Revolution and Civil War, the triumph of the Soviet State, the German invasion of Russia, the bombings of German cities, and the sufferings of post-war refugees were all experienced personally by Eksteins and his family. Eksteins artfully interleaves the story of his family, the history of Latvia, and the larger history of 20th century Europe into a portrait of the disintegration of 19th century European life. The structure of the book is that the vignettes that comprise the narrative proceed both towards and away from the psychic epicenter of the book, the year 1945, when much of Europe was rubble. This book appears to have begun as a conventional attempt to describe Europe in 1945. Eksteins apparently found this to be a difficult or impossible task. This is understandable; no such description is possible without an understanding the events leading to 1945, and a comprehensive description of these would be well beyond a single book. Eksteins appears to be troubled also by the fact that contemporary historical scholarship cannot extract meaning from the study of history. To paraphrase him, there can only be histories, not a single history. I suspect he also found it difficult to contemplate the truly awful events discussed in this book. At one point, he writes that 1945 is not a triumph but a problem. This is a clear and valid attack on the facile triumphalism exhibited by a lot of discussion about the Second World War. Still, one wonders if this very well written book is too pessimistic. Eksteins' success in conveying the nature of the events he describes denies his pessimism over the so-called failure of history. While he is correct in criticizing triumphalist views of the World War Two, it is not entirely fair to make statements about 1945 being solely a problem. The fact is that it was also a triumph and the ambiguous beginning of new Europe.

The greatest "unreported" story of World War II was the massive geographical dislocation of millions of Eastern Europeans in the wake of the Soviet-German conflict. There has been little historiography on the subject available to a general readership in English. Modris Eksteins' account of his family's flight from Latvia to uncertain sanctuary in Canada is a splendid, heart-rending sign that should encourage more popular history accounts of this terrible tragedy.

The destruction of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad in early 1943 and the subsequent loss of men and armor at Kursk later that summer paved the way for the Red Army to retake all of the territory lost to the Germans since June, 1941, and to storm its way through Eastern Europe to overwhelm the Nazi regime at its source in the Fuehrerbunker in Berlin. Millions of ethnic Germans, Balts, Poles and other civilian populations suffered terribly as the front lines drew back into their home territories. The Russians allowed their soldiers free reign to terrorize these civilians. Rape, theft and murder were inevitable companions that trailed in the wake of the Red Army's passage through Eastern Europe. Millions of civilians fled their homes in the dead of winter in 1944-45 to escape the dread Communist whirlwind.

Modris Eksteins wasn't old enough in 1945 to remember his family's flight from Latvia, but his talents as a historian and writer have reconstructed those terrible days intact. Eksteins uses the memories of his mother and older sister, as well as his father's diaries and official records in countries involved in the Soviet-German conflict, to piece together the history of one family's flight into diaspora. Even those lucky enough to find their way into Displaced Persons (DPs) camps in western Germany faced long waits for admission to countries that would take them. Eksteins vividly conveys the plight of DPs, an unwanted reminder to Germans of their own complicity in the worst crimes in human history and a barely-tolerated marginal presence in a postwar Canada still so Anglicized that foreigners were automatically scorned and suspect.

Gunther Grass has published a novel dealing with the East Prussian diaspora, a work that has opened up a tremendous flood of remembrance and pain in Germany. Until Grass's novel is translated and released in English, Modris Eksteins holds center court on the emotional tragedy that mass dislocation inflicted on its sufferers. It is time the voices of these people were heard.

"The girl with the flaxen hair. Beautiful she was, everyone said. Temperamental and strong-willed, too. And in the next breath they mentioned her hair, long and blond. Everyone noticed her hair."
- Walking Since Daybreak

Perhaps one can imagine what life was like during World War II. Perhaps one can imagine the horrors faced by many people during this time. But is imagining really good enough? Can one really know what happened during these times? One of the better ways to do this is to read Walking Since Daybreak by Modris Eksteins.

Walking Since Daybreak gives the reader a clear, and accurate picture of the trials that men, women, and children that lived in the Baltic regions faced. It tells of Latvia's history, how Latvia came under Russian control, how it broke free from communism, how it became the country it is today. It also tells the story of one man, and the author of the book, Modris Eksteins, and his family. How his family escaped from Latvia, and how they managed to get to Canada is a very profound and deeply intriguing tale.

Perhaps the best example of the human's violent attitude toward other humans is World War II. Its immense cataclysm has no precedent in human history: 28 million Russians perished, 10 million Germans, six million Jews, and several hundred thousand English, French, Americans, and Canadians. During the war, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia - all Baltic republics - were devastated - however, many of those who braved the voyage across Europe were rewarded with entrance into Canada and the United States, where they still continue to live today.

"Buttons. A handful of them. The small suitcase, when it was returned in May 1941, contained his pullover, boots, and those buttons."
- Walking Since Daybreak

They are the buttons of Arturs Vajeiks, one of Eksteins' relatives. Before his family received the suitcase, they had hopes that he had been deported, to the Russian Tundra.

"The prison had been so warm, they [Arturs' family] told themselves, that he hadn't needed his pullover or boots. But the buttons betrayed the hope."
- Walking Since Daybreak

For a long time, Arturs Vajeiks wasn't even an official statistic. His family did not know where his body lay. When he was taken away on February 19, 1941, he didn't die - he disappeared. On that day, Arturs was planning to take a load of timber to the mill, for cutting. Members of the railroad police, an auxiliary force, came for him. The charges against him were that he had "belonged to a counterrevolutionary organization, and stashed weapons illegally." The weapons charge was the most serious.

"When Latvia regained its independence in 1991, a goddaughter of Arturs discovered some information: On February 11, 1942, almost a year after his arrest, he had been found guilty under the criminal statutes of the Soviet Union and sentenced to death."
- Walking Since Daybreak

Unfortunately, this happened often during the war, and after it. A family member would simply disappear without a trace. Then, after Latvia regained its independence, the family would receive information concerning their beloved family member.

"In August 1995, the Republic of Latvia 'rehabilitated' Arturs Vajeiks."
- Walking Since Daybreak

Walking Since Daybreak is made up of many stories of Eksteins' family members, such as the one above. It also includes information about significant battles that took place during World War II in the Baltic area, and it tells the tale of how Latvia regained its independence. Because it is not a work of fiction, there is no discernable plot, but rather a collection of real-life stories, collected by Modris Eksteins, and published in this book.

It is due to the fact that no book is complete without a beginning, middle, and end, that this book flows the way it does. Modris Eksteins has taken a collection of stories from World War II, and compiled them in such a way that they are extremely intriguing to anyone who may come across them. The stories fit together perfectly. Walking Since Daybreak holds the reader's attention just as well as any work of fiction.

Although the story of World War II is a sad one, one must remember that lives were changed, sometimes for the better, because of it. Many people living here now would not be alive if WWII had not occurred. Many people would not be living in the conditions they are now, if WWII had not occurred. However many somber stories there are, there are always some happy endings.

"For regret and tears there was no time, no point. Someone once said that war poetry was the love poetry of our age. The girl with the flaxen hair would surely agree."
- Walking Since Daybreak

Danube
Claudio Magris
2001
ISBN 1-86046-823-3

I have seen the Danube at Donauwoerth in Germany and Linz and Melk in Austria. When I came across Claudio Magris' book, I was interested enough to buy it. Magris' book about the Danube is an unusual one. It is not a travel book, but more the historical reflections of a man visiting centuries-old towns along the river from where it originates in Germany to where it ends in the Black Sea in Rumania.

Since I have visited or read about some of the towns along the Danube in the German-speaking world, I found that part of the book more interesting. I knew less about the other countries -- Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Rumania, and I did not relate as well to that part of the book.

On the whole, there are some obstacles to overcome in reading this book. The writer's style is rather wordy and rambling. In one sentence, for example, I counted seventy-five words. There are endless literary and historical references, many of which are somewhat obscure. For me, eventually they grew tiresome. The book, in English, is a translated work. At points, one wonders if the rendering of sentences such as, "That life which the photograph fixed in one of its instants is vanished forever", could not have been translated in plainer English.

Still, some of this book is good reading. Magris' story about the director of the river works at Linz who spent a lifetime marking out the confines of the upper Danube and wrote a three volume work of 2,164 pages about all the aspects of the river from the different types of rafts and barges to the poems, songs, plays, and novels that related to the river is amusing. At the other extreme, Magris' description of visiting the terrible stone quarry at Mauthausen concentration camp that the Nazis set up on the Danube, where 110,000 people died, is disturbing.

On the whole, I would say this book is interesting reading in places. Elsewhere, it drags a bit. For example, consider a sentence such as, "Are the Istrians therefore Thracians, as Apollodorus thought, or Colchians, according to the view of Pliny and Strabo, or are they Gepids? "

Perhaps, the main problem with "Danube" is that the scope and coverage of the book are simply too great. The countries through which the lower reaches of the Danube flow do not have so much in common with those of the German-speaking part of the Danube. Like the Nile, it is a very long river, and, similarly it comes into contact with a number of lands with differing cultural traditions and histories. The Danube as an organizational theme for Magris' reflections about history and literature falters in the face of the great diversity of the material. Also, there is the question of if this book is really about the Danube or more a vehicle for Magris' wide-ranging interests.

Magris's account of the journey, from its obscure and contested origins in Germany (Donaueschingen? Brigach? Furtwangen?), to the Black Sea is alternatingly scintillating and impenetrably dense. It is fully possible that many of the stylistic difficulties that occur hear arise out of the translation process.

Despite the occasional obfuscation, this is a deeply intriguing book. I picked it up, thinking that it may perhaps successfully do for the Donau (Danube) what Rebecca West's monumental "Black lamb and Grey Falcon" did for Yugoslavia, namely to serve as a marvelous compilation of historical narratives and anecdotes, sort of a "reference point for the ages". In this, "Danube" does not disappoint. There may be thousands of more readable books, but this one is rare, in that it blends so wonderfully narrative, history, and anecdote. Ultimately even the denseness of the prose may be a virtue...it reduces the reader's speed, allowing us to better digest and reflect upon its contents. I recommend it.

Claudio Magris's Danube is special to me first of all because I spent 8 years living and working in the Central European area described in the book. But it is more than just another travel book because it manages to capture the mood and feeling of Central Europe: its complex overlapping history, the melancholic pensiveness of so many of its writers and artists, the sense of hidden mystery in so many of its places. Danube manages to combine the travel narrative with philosophy, history and real sense of place. It is essential reading whether you go to Central Europe or are just interested in its complexity.

The thing I noticed most of all about this book is the strength the author has is creating original and interesting characters - from the main character, who is overly honest, wry and sarchastic yet is deeply affected by the war, to the glue-sniffing former friend who is so out of it that he wants to join the Crotian army because he'll be paid more. I don't think this book could have been written in English-it has the feeling of a translation from Serbian (that's a good thing).

I'm only 17 but do to the recent activities in Yugoslavia, I've been thrown into its path. Arsenijevic is a writer who beautifully entwines comedy and tragedy. You are often laughing and crying because of the ambivalence. If you have been paying attention to the horrors going on in Kosovo right now, you somehow can understand, through reading, how those people fighting to remain normal feel right now. A must read. You'll never put it down.

This is a great book about methaphysical Belgrade during past ten years.

The book starts off telling the story from the very beginning of the conquest of the city by the Ottoman Empire in 1453. Surprisingly the muslim sultan, Mehmet the II protects the multicultural structure of the city. In fact he improves it. In a short time the city grows up with dozens of different ethnic groups. Each citizen was speaking at least three languages on the street of the Constantinople. Even though the empire was sinking in the 19th century at least a dozen of newspapers were being published in ten different languages. This magnificency unfortunately goes down deeper and deeper as the empire goes down more. That harmony leaves itself to mutual massacres. With the establishment of the Turkish Republic minorities are expelled and the city that hosted dozens of ethnic groups as a capital city dies off with the declaration of Ankara as a new capital city. Constantinople becomes Istanbul. Tough it remains as the biggest city of Asia Minor, now it is too far from her multicultural, multicolorful days. The book tells the tragic story of a big city with interesting historical information as well. A must to buy.

This book is a wonderful social and cultural history of the Ottoman Empire. The author provides a lot of fascinating tidbits about all aspects of life in the city. This is both enlightening and entertaining and underneath it all Mr. Mansel wants to make an important point: this is a place where East meets West; a place where, much of the time, different religions and different cultures have been able to live in peace, side by side. This has obviously not always been the case- but when during human history can you cover a span of 500 years and not find conflict?

After 1453, Jews were encouraged to immigrate from Europe. This was not a policy based on humanitarian considerations. It was based on economic considerations. But, still, it was done. In contrast to western Europe, "there were no restrictions on freedom of trade and few limits on the construction of synagogues. Jews soon flourished...After the first decades, their history is that rarity in Jewish history, a happy story. In Constantinople the words pogrom, ghetto, inquisition had no meaning."

Mr. Mansel deals with many interesting topics. Some examples:

Marriage and the relations between men and women: "For a rich heterosexual male with a taste for variety, however, Constantinople could be a paradise. Some changed wives frequently or, like the Sultan, purchased large numbers of female slaves."

Food: "Vegetables were the glory of Ottoman cuisine, prepared with a subtlety rarely devoted to them in other countries. Some dishes, especially those based on the 'king of vegetables', the aubergine, required days of preparation. Two sets of vegetables were served at meals: cold vegetables cooked in oil and hot vegetables cooked in butter."

Alcohol: "The prohibition of alcohol was the Muslim tradition least observed in Constantinople. Jews imported wine from Germany and Spain, but the most popular was the sweet wine of the Aegean islands, such as Samos or Crete, celebrated since classical times."

The cosmopolitan nature of the city: "Constantinople had become a way of life-the only city to be both resort and capital, Bath and London, Spa and Paris. The shared pleasures of food, wine, music, the tavern, the coffee-house and the Bosphorus, united Muslims and non-Muslims."

If this book has a weakness it is that, perhaps, at times it tries to cover too many topics. I think it works best as a cultural and social history. However, in the last 150-200 pages Mr. Mansel switches gears and the book delves mostly into the murky world of politics- both national and international. The reader who is looking for a social history might be bored by the last third of the book. The political scientist might not enjoy the first 300 pages or so. But, Mr. Mansel picked a very difficult story to tell and he is to be congratulated for doing a very fine job overall.

I approached this book with some suspicion, principally because of Cormack's review, and also because of Mansel's earlier book "Sultans in Splendour" which is a disaster. However, "Constantinople" captivated me. Anyone interested in Ottoman history, in Istanbul's history, social structure and architecture, must read this book. Mansel was able to write a history book imminently readable and enjoyable. Yes, he is somewhat dismissive of Braudel and Edward Said, but he presents his material cogently and intelligently. One of the most enjoyable books I read in a while, and one which I wish I could have read before visiting this glorious city. For anyone visiting Istanbul, this is a book to take along with the travel guide

As Christiansen notes early on, this extraordinary phase in Eastern European history has had little impact on popular memory. The only film to depict the Northern Crusades was Eisensteins 1937 classic, "Alexander Nevsky," a thinly-veiled piece of Soviet anti-German propaganda which portrayed the Teutonic Knights as cruel and hypocritical savages, destined for a deservingly bloody fate. Absent this kind of rank oversimplification, however, it is well-nigh impossible to find a single constituency with whom the modern observer might empathize. Of the Teutonic knights, one has to ask, how did a group of intelligent, ostensibly religious men take it upon themselves to visit extermination on so wide a scale? Not that the heathen Baltic peoples who they professed to "save" were particularly cuddly, either. As bizarre was the prolific, but genocidal St. Bridget of Sweden, whose many pamphlets encouraged Swedish and Teutonic crusaders to kill any pagan who refused instant baptism, on the grounds that the sooner their sinful lives were terminated, the better. This is a compelling history of the bizarre series of wars which introduced Christianity to Prussia and which forged the future of modern Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Finland.

This book covers the Christianization of the Baltic region during the late middle ages. Christiansen does a very nice job assimilating the archaelogical and historical evidence, and then explaining it and telling a good "story" in a very readable fashion. This is a very complex area, and Christiansen has to deal with the collision of four different linguistic groups and cultural traditions: 1. The Christian West Germanic and North Germanic peoples, i.e., Saxons, Danes, Swedes, etc. 2. The pagan Baltic peoples such as the Latvians and Lithuanians. 3. The pagan Finnic peoples, including the Finns and Estonians, but also many tribes whose language and culture barely survives today, such as the Livonians, Ingrians, Karelians, etc. 4. The partially Christianized Slavic tribes.

There is very little published in English about this time and place in history. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the subject, or in the Baltic region in general, especially someone interested in a good overview as a start. As I've indicated, in spite of the complexity of the subject, it does read well.

The crusades against northeastern Europe are far less known than the parallell Palestinian ones, although perhaps of far more historical importance. Between the 11th and 15th century the entire Baltic region grew from an unexplored semi-wilderness into a area of organized, settled states, a growth partly caused by the influx of Western crusaders and partly by the subsequent reaction against this.

Eric Christiansen tells the story of these important centuries without the bias towards one side or another which is typical for other works, particularly when descibing the Teutonic Knights, their conquest of Prussia and subsequent wars with Poland and the Novgorod Russiansand, and has succeeded in writing a book that is both informative and entertaining.