Jason Goodwin
The Last Roman City
Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453
By Roger Crowley
Faber & Faber 320pp £16.99 order from our bookshop
Sir Steven Runciman’s lapidary account of the siege and fall of Constantinople in 1453, now forty years old, was a lamentation for the civilisation and the people he loved: ‘In this story,’ he wrote, ‘the Greek people is the tragic hero.’ Roger Crowley’s Constantinople reminds us of the triumph, too. For the Ottomans, the city was a challenge to which they rose, fulfilling a Mahometan prophecy which had grown old in the telling. It was a wild venture for the new young sultan Mehmet, who staked his reputation – and his life – on its success.
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'When the language starts functioning as a character in fiction, when it is there drawing attention to itself ... It’s not anything that anybody really takes seriously.'
Our interview with Anthony Burgess from 1983.
http://ow.ly/5u0y50yrjoO
'Sabotage became so prevalent that bankers even created their own terms – ‘asymmetric information’, ‘lack of financial literacy’, ‘the principal-agent dilemma’ – to describe how they might turn a dime from customers’ gullibility or ignorance.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/master-criminals-of-the-universe
'Unlike much that was extracted from India, these paintings were not plunder, and those who created them were properly remunerated and often received due credit.'
@PParkerWriting on 'Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/artists-for-hire