The Fall of Constantinople [Hardcover]

Nanami Shiono (Author), Kerim Yasar (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2005

The Roman Empire did not meet its end when barbarians sacked the City of Seven Hills, but rather a thousand years later with the fall of Constantinople, capital of the surviving Eastern Empire. The Ottoman Turks who conquered the city aslo known to us as Byzantium would force a tense centruy of conflict in the Mediterranean culminating in the famous Battle of Lepanto. The first book in a triptych depicting this monumental confrontation between a Muslim empire and Christendom, The Fall of Constantinople brilliantly captures a defning moment in the two creeds' history too often eclipsed by the Crusades.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nanami Shiono is the preeminent author of popular history in Japanese today. In survey after survey, the most powerful Japanese politicians and industrialists (many of whom she counts as personal friends) name her as their favorite author, and she enjoys a degree of influence in public discourse that few authors anywhere could hope to match. In 1970, the same year she won the first of many literary awards for her early masterpiece Cesare Borgia, or Elegant Cruelty, she moved permanently to her adopted home of Italy. Although she first rose to prominence as an author of works set in Renaissance Italy, her expertise has widened to include the Mediterranean as a whole, as well as ancient Rome (which she treats in her bestselling fifteen-volume history, The Tale of the Romans). The East Mediterranean Trilogy, completed in 1987, remains among her most enduringly popular works. The first volume, The Fall of Constantinople, is available from Vertical, as well as The Siege of Rhodes and the last volume, The Battle of Lepanto.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 16 and up
  
• Hardcover: 236 pages
• Publisher: Vertical (July 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932234179
• ISBN-13: 978-1932234176
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #762,712 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars amazing history novel, January 2, 2008

By 

Julius Caesar - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fall of Constantinople (Hardcover)

I love Nanami Shiono and I read this book in Japanese first. She is such a great writer. Any translation can't be exact, especially from Asian language to English is not easy and vice versa. We lose the atomosphere and nuances of each sentence or the image we share when we hear a certain vocabulary. It's not the translator's but us who don't know enough about each other's culture. Still the story line of book is great and very entertaining. If you're interested in history and want to know more about the war between muslim and christian, this book will definitely get you some good insights.

5 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Simplistic, May 10, 2007

By 

Bothell Reader (Washington) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Fall of Constantinople (Hardcover)

This book, and it's 2 companion volumes, are very simplistic accounts of pivotal moments in renaissance mediterrean history.

As history they are very limited. There are no notes, no bibliographies, no idexes and very limited maps.

Worse, for books purporting to be history, their writing style is juvenile and contrived, more suited to maybe a sixth grade class room than adult history. The books are marred by made up conversations and situations, to perhaps illustrate history, but certainly nothing that was found in whatever research the author might have done.

I can't really see how this writer is the most loved historian in Japan, based on these books. Perhaps the translator has simplified the language and ideas, who knows.

So, if you have a grade school or junior high child who wanted an introduction to these events, they might be useful, but for adult reading they should be bypassed.

All in all, very disappointing efforts for someone who claims to be a historian.