Constantinople

Has nostalgia become the Greeks’ national disease?

11 December 2021 9:00 am

Imagine a new take on the Greek myth of Pygmalion. A love-shy artist makes a woman out of marble who…

Were the Ottoman Turks as European as they thought themselves?

20 November 2021 9:00 am

This is the best of times to be writing history, since so much of what has been taken for granted,…

The war that changed the world in the early seventh century

18 September 2021 9:00 am

It was not a war to end all wars, writes James Howard-Johnston at the start of this illuminating and thought-provoking…

City of dazzling mosaics: the golden age of Ravenna

19 September 2020 9:00 am

Ian Thomson describes Ravenna’s golden age, when classical Rome, Byzantium and Christianity met

The Sultan crosses the Golden Horn.

Tell them of Battles, Kings and Elephants, by Mathias Enard, reviewed

8 December 2018 9:00 am

Michelangelo seems never to have travelled to Turkey to advise the Sultan on a bridge to span the Golden Horn,…

The Broken Road, by Patrick Leigh Fermor - review

7 September 2013 9:00 am

Sound the trumpets. Let rip the Byzantine chorus of clattering bells and gongs, the thunder of cannons, drums and flashing…