Istanbul A Tale of Three Cities Author:Bettany Hughes Istanbul has always been a place where stories and histories collide.From the Koran to Shakespeare, this city with three names -- Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul -- resonates as an idea and a place, real and imagined. Standing as the gateway between East and West, it has been the capital city of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. For... more » much of its history it was the very center of the world, known simply as "The City," but, as Bettany Hughes reveals, Istanbul is not just a city, but a story.In this epic new biography, Hughes takes us on a dazzling historical journey through the many incarnations of one of the world's greatest cities. As the longest-lived political entity in Europe, over the last 6,000 years Istanbul has absorbed a mosaic of micro-cities and cultures all gathering around its core. At the latest count, archaeologists have measured forty-two human habitation layers. Phoenicians, Genoese, Venetians, Jews, Vikings, and Azeris all called a patch of this earth their home.Based on meticulous research and new archaeological evidence, this captivating portrait of the momentous life of Istanbul is visceral, immediate, and scholarly -- narrative history at its finest.« less