To The City: Life and Death Along the Ancient Walls of Istanbul

by Alexander Christie-Miller

ISBN: 9780008416041

Published: 2024-01-31

In this extraordinary literary debut, Christie-Miller traces the history and present of Istanbul by walking along its crumbling defensive walls and talking to those he passes. Caught between two seas and two continents, with a contested past and an imperiled future, Istanbul represents the precipitous moment civilizations around the world are currently facing. To the City seamlessly blends two narratives: the fragile optimism of the present-day and its inhabitants, and the story of Mehmet's siege and capture of the city in 1453. Those events still loom over the city, as Erdogan--a kind of latter-day sultan--invokes their memory as part of his effort to transform Turkey and resurrect its imperial past. Istanbul stands at the centre of the most pressing challenges of our time. Environmental decay, rapacious development and a refugee crisis are straining the city to breaking point, while its civil society gutters in the face of resurgent authoritarianism. Yet, Istanbul has endured...