The History of Turkey

ISBN-13: 9783565076765 / Angielski / Miękka / 2025 / 188 str.

Auke de Haan

Opis

Anatolia's cradle rocked with bronze-age brawls: Hittites clashing iron with Egyptians at Kadesh, their cuneiform curses carved into canyon walls that still echo under hot-air balloons. Then the Greeks sailed in, dotting coasts with agoras and acropolises, only for Alexander's phalanxes to steamroll through, leaving Pergamum's scrolls to gather dust till Rome's eagles perched on the plateau. Byzantium bloomed next-Justinian's mosaics glinting in Hagia's dome, a Christian bulwark against Persian fire-worshippers and Arab caliphs probing with scimitars. It was a hinge of faiths, where emperors blindfolded rivals and silk traders whispered plots in hammams, holding the East's edge till Mehmed's cannons cracked the walls in '53.Ottomans picked up the pieces, stringing sultans like beads on a rosary from Edirne to Baghdad-Selim the Grim stuffing the pope's beard in his turban, Suleiman the Lawgiver juggling concubines and conquests while architects sketched Sinan's spires. Coffeehouses brewed rebellion alongside beans, Janissaries mutinied over tulip bulbs, and the empire's skirts hiked up under European knives, bleeding Balkan chunks till Young Turks toppled the throne in a haze of hashish and howitzers. Gallipoli's cliffs drank Aussie blood in '15, a meat-grinder prelude to the armistice that carved the map like bad baklava.Kemal's mustache marched out of the ashes-abolishing the caliph, Latinizing the script, and welding a republic from warlord welds, though Kurds grumbled in the hills and Armenians' ghosts paced Van's lakeside. Istanbul shed its Constantinople skin for skyscrapers and stray cats, bridging EU dreams with Syrian influxes, earthquakes reminding everyone the fault lines run deep. This history's no dry divan-it's a meze platter of sieges and seductions, proving Turkey's the crossroads where East winks at West over raki shots.

Anatolia's cradle rocked with bronze-age brawls: Hittites clashing iron with Egyptians at Kadesh, their cuneiform curses carved into canyon walls that still echo under hot-air balloons.