My list of great history books

MY LIST OF MUST-READ HISTORY BOOKS:




From Ruins of Empire by Pankaj Mishra


A People's Trajedy by Frank Dikotter


Mao's Great Famine by Frank Dikotter


A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes


Lenin by Robert Service


In Defence of History by Richard J. Evans

GREAT BOOK: A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes

http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/1996/oct/06/featuresreview.review


AMAZING BOOK
looks at the story of individuals during the Russian Revolution


Although a heavy and thick book, it captures you and takes you from Nicholas II's reign to the Russian Civil War. Absolutely worth reading!

John F. Kennedy

I was interested in this individual when I watched 'The Butler'; he was shot whilst fighting for the rights of black people.
What would have happened if he hadn't been shot? is the main question that comes to mind: tell me what you think!!

A Life in Brief

John F. Kennedy was born into a rich, politically connected Boston family of Irish-Catholics. He and his eight siblings enjoyed a privileged childhood of elite private schools, sailboats, servants, and summer homes. During his childhood and youth, "Jack" Kennedy suffered frequent serious illnesses. Nevertheless, he strove to make his own way, writing a best-selling book while still in college at Harvard and volunteering for hazardous combat duty in the Pacific during World War II. Kennedy's wartime service made him a hero. After a short stint as a journalist, Kennedy entered politics, serving in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953 and the U.S. Senate from 1953 to 1961.
Kennedy was the youngest person elected U.S. President and the first Roman Catholic to serve in that office. For many observers, his presidency came to represent the ascendance of youthful idealism in the aftermath of World War II. The promise of this energetic and telegenic leader was not to be fulfilled, as he was assassinated near the end of his third year in office. For many Americans, the public murder of President Kennedy remains one of the most traumatic events in memory—countless Americans can remember exactly where they were when they heard that President Kennedy had been shot. His shocking death stood at the forefront of a period of political and social instability in the country and the world.

A key individual : Otto Von Bismarck

Bismarck was responsible for transforming a collection of small German states into the German empire, and was its first chancellor.

Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck was born into an aristocratic family at Schönhausen, northwest of Berlin, on 1 April 1815. He attended a prestigious school in Berlin followed by the University of Göttingen. He then entered the Prussian civil service but was bored by his job and in 1838 resigned. For nearly a decade, he helped his father manage the family estates.

In 1847, Bismarck married Johanna von Puttkamer, who provided him with stability. It was a year of significant change in his life, when he also embraced the Christian tradition of Lutheranism, and began his political career in the Prussian legislature, where he gained a reputation as an ultra-conservative royalist. In 1851, King Frederick Wilhelm IV appointed Bismarck as Prussian representative to the German Confederation. He then served as ambassador to Russia and France. In 1862, he returned to Prussia and was appointed prime minister by the new king, Wilhelm I.

Bismarck was now determined to unite the German states into a single empire, with Prussia at its core. With Austrian support, he used the expanded Prussian army to capture the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark. He then escalated a quarrel with Austria and its German allies over the administration of these provinces into a war, in which Prussia was the victor. Prussia then annexed further territory in Germany.

Unable to persuade the southern German states to join with his North German Confederation, he provoked hostilities with France as a way of uniting the German states together. The German victory in the Franco-Prussian War won over the southern German states, and in 1871 they agreed to join a German empire. Wilhelm I of Prussia became emperor.

As 'chancellor' of the new Germany, Bismarck concentrated on building a powerful state with a unified national identity. One of his targets was the Catholic Church, which he believed had too much influence, particularly in southern Germany. He also worked to prevent the spread of socialism, partly by introducing health insurance and pensions.

Abroad, Bismarck aimed to make the German empire the most powerful in Europe. In 1879, he negotiated an alliance with Austria-Hungary to counteract France and Russia. Italy later joined the alliance. To avoid alienating Britain, Bismarck arranged the two Mediterranean Agreements of 1887, designed to preserve the status quo against a Russian threat.

In 1890, Bismarck resigned after disagreeing with the new emperor, Wilhelm II. He retired to his estate near Hamburg and died there on 30 July 1898.

After Bismarck, Calvini became Chancellor, and, by disagreeing to re-negotiate the "reinsurance" treaty with Russia, and many more errors from the government, Germany became isolated: by 1905, France and Russia had an alliance; so did Britain and Japan and Britain and France had made a pact not to fight with each other. Although Germany had Austria and Italy as allies, Austria was weak and Italy was untrustworthy.

Great Book on this: Bismarck: A Life by Jonathan Steinberg!

Tactic of World War II: Bat Bombs

On December 7, 1941, a Pennsylvania dentist named Lytle S. Adams was on vacation in the southwest at the famed Carlsbad Caverns, home to excellent spelunking and about a million bats. Adams had been particularly impressed with the bats during his time in New Mexico. So when he turned on the radio that infamous day and heard the news that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, he began plotting a very unusual form of revenge on our World War II enemies.

Less than a month later, on January 12, 1942, he sent the White House his plan: We could demolish Japanese cities by strapping tiny incendiary bombs to bats, which they would carry into the all the nooks and crannies of the cities on the island. "Think of thousands of fires breaking out simultaneously over a circle of forty miles in diameter for every bomb dropped," he later recalled. Japan could have been devastated, yet with small loss of life."
Now, as luck would have it, Adams happened to know Eleanor Roosevelt. He'd flown her in his plane to see a previous scheme he'd cooked up: an airmail system where the plane doesn't have to land to pick up cargo. So, when he finished his preliminary investigations, he appears to have managed to get a high-level audience, despite the rather eccentric nature of his idea.
His proposal was taken up by the National Research Defense Committee, which was in charge of coordinating and investigating research into war-applicable ideas. They forwarded the proposal to one Donald Griffin, who had conducted groundbreaking work on bats' echolocation strategies, as related by Patrick Drumm and Christopher Ovre in this month's American Psychological Association Journal. Griffin, who later became a renowned psychologist who argued that non-human animals also possess consciousness, was quite enthusiastic about the idea.
"This proposal seems bizarre and visionary at first glance," he wrote in April 1942, "but extensive experience with experimental biology convinces the writer that if executed competently it would have every chance of success."
The President's men followed Griffin's lead. "This man is not a nut. It sounds like a perfectly wild idea but is worth looking into," a Presidential memorandum concluded. And so, just like that, a dentist's crazy idea about bats had become a U.S. government research project.
After the team settled on using the Mexican free-tailed bat, Adams took a few to Washington for a demonstration of them carrying a dummy bomb. His superiors were sufficiently impressed that the U.S. Air Force gave authority for investigations to begin in earnest. It was March of 1943. The subject of the letter was, "Test of Method to Scatter Incendiaries." The purpose of the test was listed as, "Determine the feasibility of using bats to carry small incendiary bombs into enemy targets." The scheme became known as Project X-Ray.
After being transferred to the Army, thousands of bats were captured with nets at caverns around the southwest. Tiny bombs were designed for them. Appreciate, for a moment, the incendiary bomb that they came up with:

But this was a complex system that was being engineered. The researchers needed to figure out how to transport and deploy the little guys. So they did. First, the bats had to be kept in a hibernating mode while they were shipped. To accomplish this, they were stuck in ice cube trays and cooled. Second, they had to figure out how to release them in midair. A cardboard container was supposed to automatically open and release the bats. This was a real effort that cost science and engineering effort. Unfortunately, real tests did not go as planned. There were all kinds of things that needed to be fine-tuned. For example, at one point, a few of the loaded incendiary bats were accidentally released, whereupon a hangar and general's car were burned (as you can see in the photo below).
Eventually the Marine Corps took over the program and conducted tests beginning in December 1943. After 30 demonstrations and $2 million spent, the project was canceled. Most people believe it's because the U.S. realized that all resources should be concentrated on the development of a far more powerful weapon: the atomic bomb.
Adams, for his part, went on to a variety of crazy schemes. Right after, he advocated bombing the prairies with seed packets, and patented that scheme. And finally, after moving to Washington state, he tried to garner interest in a fried chicken vending machine. Truly Adams was a man with some ideas of his own making.

1. Lytle Adams loading bats into containers. 2. The bat containers being airdropped in a test. 3. The fire that accidentally released bats started at an Air Force facility. Images: U.S. Air Forc

Psychological History

A new type of History has emerged throughout the past twenty years or so: the type of history that psychologically analyses why crucial historical individuals did certain actions they did.


http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/17/science/insane-or-just-evil-a-psychiatrist-takes-a-new-look-at-hitler.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
This article is one of the most common examples of this history: Why did Hitler do what he did?


My questions about this
Can one actually justify someone's actions by something that happened in his/her childhood or his/her past? If so to what extent?
Doesn't it depend as different things affect different people in different ways?
Surely one cannot make an analysis on the precise reasons of someone's actions based on some knowledge of their childhood?


Nevertheless, I feel that to some extent some things happened in the past because an individual made a decision that was heavily influenced by their childhood.


Some interesting examples
Louis XIV's distrust in his court, owing to the revolts throughout the nobility when he was only 9 that tried to overthrow him, maybe hindered France from becoming as powerful as it may have been, as he did not take anybody's advice.


Alexander III's extremely conservative reign after his father's assassination in 1881.


The Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05 because of Nicholas II's hatred for the Japanese because of the Otsu incident. This was an attempt of assassination on the Tsarevich in 1891 by a Japanese when he was touring the world.

The role of dogs in history

Man’s best friend has been by our side for some 14,000 years, playing a part in some of the most significant human conflicts of our history. The dog’s devotion to man, its intelligence and heightened sense of smell has seen it carry out a variety of roles in warfare.
The Romans made good use of their loyalty and fearsome image to deter and detect any marauding bandits by placing them near camps or on patrols as sentries. Attila the Hun used giant Molosser dogs on the front line, sending them in packs to face his European enemies. Mastiffs and Great Danes were used in England during the Middles Ages, exploiting their size to scare enemy horses into throwing off the knight they were carrying.
During two world wars dogs were given many duties including carrying messages, laying communication wires and helping to locate mines. Due to their widespread roles, many stories of heroism and dedication have arisen from these two conflicts alone.
A bulldog terrier with a short tail, aptly named Stubby, became the first dog in U.S. military history to be awarded a rank. Connected with the U.S. 102nd Infantry Regiment, who found him whilst training on Yale University campus, Stubby was given his name and smuggled on board the SS Minnesota by Private John Robert Conroy and headed for the trenches in 1918. Endearing himself to the whole Regiment with his antics, Stubby would go on to save the lives of these men time and time again. Armed with an acute sense of smell and hearing, Stubby could alert the troops to incoming shells or gas long before they themselves could detect them. He would also locate wounded soldiers in No Man’s Land, standing by their side and barking until a medic arrived. He even detained a German spy who was mapping out the American trenches. Stubby bit him on the leg the German tripped over and was subsequently captured. When he was awarded the rank of Sergeant, Stubby found himself outranking his own owner. After participating in 17 battles and being wounded twice, Stubby returned home a national hero, participating in frequent parades before his death in 1926.
And then there was Smoky, a Yorkshire Terrier who served as a mascot in WWII with the US 5th Air Force in the Pacific. Adopted by Corporal William Wynne in the jungle of New Guinea, Smoky helped to divert the minds of those around her from the stresses and horrors of war. Surviving a parachute jump, air raids, living in primitive conditions and through combat missions, Smoky was awarded eight battle stars for her bravery and devotion. She has six memorials dedicated in her honour.
In more modern times, dogs have played a crucial role in sniffing out and locating explosive devices. Subsequently 4 dogs have been awarded the Dickin award since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began in 2003 including Treo the Labrador who in August 2008, located an IED (“improvised explosive device”) on a road about to be passed by 7 Platoon, undoubtedly saving the lives of many soldiers.

What was the state of russia in 1914- notes

• He set up field courts in 1906 to crush peasant uprisings. 'Stolypin's neckties (the hangman's noose) dealt with thousands of peasants and nearly and nearly 60 000 political detainees were executed or sent into exile or penal servitude in 'Stolypin carriages' (railway cars).
• Stolypin's objectives: feed the rapidly growing population and avoid the cycle of famine and revolt + create a strong conservative peasantry who would support the regime.
• Stolypin was the Tsar's 'last, best hope'-->
• Abraham Ascher: Stolypin's vision was 'more feasible and more likely to lead Russia out of the abyss than any other'.

Industry Situation

"Could Tsarism have survived? 1906-1917"

• after 1907, industrial production grew steadily at a rate around 6% per annum until 1914, although this high rate was largely due to the start from a low base.
• by 1914, Russia was the world's 4th largest producer of coal, pig-iron and steel, and the Baku oilfields were only rivalled by Texas. Impressive Achievements.
• Gov's rearmament programme- heavy industry
• the downside of this focus on rearmament was that industry could not meet the demands for agricultural tools and machinery
• Industrial Development was largely state sponsored with companies dependent on gov contracts
• Growing internal market and the production of consumer goods rose. As a proportion of total industrial production, however, the share of consumer goods actually fell (52%- 45%)
• For historiography see booklet
• By 1914, industrial workforce had established itself as a distinct section of the pop; level of literacy was high (64% in 1914) (less than 40%= pop in general)
• Things had not much improved for the workers since 1905; workers' wages were less than one third the average in Western Europe+ the Russian gov had made no real attempt to improve their conditions (contrast to other nations in Europe - social reforms)
• 1912, limited insurance for accidents and sickness introduced; but only a minority of the work force.
• some places, work hours had increased since 1905
• no support of old age

Agrarian Situation

"Could Tsarism have survived? 1906-1917"

• Agrarian Reforms. Peasants were allowed to leave the mir, to consolidate their strips of land into a single unit and build a farmhouse or it. A land bank was set up to help the independent peasant buy land. (Stolypin believed that making peasants independent prop. owners + full civil rights would give them a stake in the country and lead them to become supporters of the regime) Encourage peasants to go to Siberia to create new food-growing areas.
• Abraham Ascher's view: if there had been more time - contributed to a more moderate revolution
• by 1914, only about 10% of households in European Russia lived on farms separated from the commune
• those who left were seen as traitors
• reform was more successful in the west- in Ukraine and Belorussia- than in other parts of Russia where reform was most needed.
• Judith Pallot argues that there were alternatives which could have done as much if not more to increase peasant farm productivity. Commune not always backwards + some 'separators' used poor farming methods and exhausted the soil
• by 1914, 20 mil peasant households, most still in communes using the inefficient strip system.
• no major upheavals and disturbances
• peasants not been tied closer to the Tsar by the reforms
• growth in pop had only increased their hunger for land, particularly in the central agricultural province
• main aims had not  changed: getting their hands on the nobility's land and farming it free from gov interference
• Orlando Figes-- landowners felt that 'the next- and imminently more powerful revolutionary outburst by the peasantry would only be a question of time'.
• consequences of Stolypin's reforms: peasants who had left the land as a result of the reforms were often full of resentment and many of these had gone into the towns and cities to become industrial workers
• thousands of peasants who had been encouraged to go to Siberia returned home, having found the land inhospitable or been cheated by land speculators.

Political Situation

"Could Tsarism have survived? 1906-1917"

• after 1905, the labour movement had retreated as repression of trade unions and strikes, but revival of militancy from 1912
• started with Lena Goldfields Massacre in April 1912: striking workers protesting clashed with troops and over  200 people were killed and many injured --> workers' protest
• strikes grew in militancy from 1912 to 1914 (eg. July 1914, general strike in St Petersburg involving barricades and street fighting) (only 1/4 involved; 4/5 in 1917)
• Students' relationship with gov. was bad- supported workers
• regime worried of urban unrest but not ready to be toppled in 1914
• RB McKean argues that most workers did not work in the larger factories targeted by the socialists but in the domestic and service sectors. Most workers were not socialists and strikes were mainly about pay and working conditions.
• increase in section of the labour force that was rootless and disoriented and who provided good material for revolutionary propaganda.
• Liberals were divided and no real threat. Octobrists and Kadets distrusted each other, were out of touch with the masses and refused to seek their support, as they feared mass anarchy and did not support the strike movement.
• SRs were in turmoil after 1908 as a result of the exposure of Azef, especially as the party's terrorist wing had such prestige within the party. SRs became obsessed with the issue of double agents and party organisation broke down + was division between leadership.
• Mensheviks enjoyed popularity in 1905, but Lena blew any illusions about the regime and peaceful change, giving the more radical Bolsheviks their opportunity.
• By 1914, Bolsheviks had more influence over trade unions than Mensheviks. Control over the biggest unions in St Petersburg and Moscow, like the Metalworkers Union. Bolshevik Paper 'Pravda' had achieved national circulation of 40,000 (twice Menshevik rival).
• HOWEVER
• leadership exile or, like Lenin, isolated abroad.
• Lenin had failed to build a national illegal party organisation.
• thorough infiltration by the Okhrana
• in 1914, army remained loyal.
• HOWEVER, Edward Acton points out: experience of 1905-06 and the subsequent reforms had weakened the army;   mutinies not easily forgotten; the cutting of the period of service to 3 yrs bought army into closer contact with the stresses and strains of civilian society; as officer corps became more professional, it became more determined not to be used for crushing civilian disturbances.
• Okhrana--> best secret service to this day. Destroyed morale and comradeship. Malinovsky- leading Bolshevik
• Simon Sebag Montifore argues that the Okhrana were so successful in poisoning revolutionary minds that 'thirty yrs after the fall of the tsars, the Bolsheviks were still killing each other in a witch-hunt for non-existent traitors.'

Shorter History of Istanbul

Here is a summary of Istanbul's history. There is so much of it. When I was visiting I got quite confused and had to look up many a thing in the evening!
Key places I visited:
Blue Mosque
St Sophie
Topkapi Palace
Grand Bazaar
Galapa Tower
the tram is great!

Byzantium

Though Istanbul may have been inhabited as early as 3000 BCE, it was not a city until Greek colonists arrived in the area in the 7th Century BCE. These colonists were led by King Byzas and settled there because of the strategic location along the Bosporus Strait. King Byzas named the city Byzantium after himself.

The Roman Empire (330-395 CE)

Following its development by the Greeks, Byzantium became a part of the Roman Empire in the 300s. During this time, the Roman emperor Constantine the Great undertook a construction project to rebuild the entire city. His goal was to make it stand out and give the city monuments similar to those found in Rome. In 330, Constantine declared the city as the capital of the entire Roman Empire and renamed it Constantinople.

The Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire (395-1204 and 1261-1453 CE)

After Constantinople was named the capital of the Roman Empire the city grew and prospered. After the death of the emperor Theodosius I in 395, however, enormous upheaval took place in the empire as his sons permanently divided the empire. Following the division, Constantinople became the capital of the Byzantine Empire in the 400s.
As part of the Byzantine Empire, the city became distinctly Greek as opposed to its former identity in the Roman Empire. Because Constantinople was at the center of two continents, it became a center of commerce, culture, diplomacy, and grew considerably. In 532, though, the anti-government Nika Revolt broke out among the city’s population and destroyed it. After the revolt however, the Constantinople was rebuilt and many of its most outstanding monuments were constructed- one of which was the Haghia Sophia as Constantinople became the center of the Greek Orthodox Church.

The Latin Empire (1204-1261)

Although Constantinople significantly prospered during decades following its becoming a part of the Byzantine Empire, the factors leading to its success also made it a target for conquering. For hundreds of years, troops from all over the Middle-East attacked the city. For a time it was even controlled by members of the Fourth Crusade after it was desecrated in 1204. Subsequently, Constantinople became the center of the Catholic Latin Empire.
As competition persisted between the Catholic Latin Empire and the Greek Orthodox Byzantine Empire, Constantinople was caught in the middle and began to significantly decay. It went financially bankrupt, the population declined, and it became vulnerable to further attacks as defense posts around the city crumbled. In 1261, in the midst of this turmoil, the Empire of Nicaea recaptured Constantinople and it was returned to the Byzantine Empire. Around the same time, the Ottoman Turks began conquering the cities surrounding Constantinople, effectively cutting it off from many of its neighboring cities.

The Ottoman Empire (1453-1922)

After being considerably weakened by constant invasions and being cut off from its neighbors by the Ottoman Turks, Constantinople was officially conquered by the Ottomans, led by Sultan Mehmed II on May 29, 1453 after a 53-day siege. During the siege, the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, died while defending his city. Almost immediately, Constantinople was named as the capital of the Ottoman Empire and its name was changed to Istanbul.
Upon taking control of the city, Sultan Mehmed sought to rejuvenate Istanbul. He created the Grand Bazaar (one of the largest covered marketplaces in the world), brought back fleeing Catholic and Greek Orthodox residents. In addition to these residents, he brought in Muslim, Christian, and Jewish families to establish a mixed populace. Sultan Mehmed also began the building of architectural monuments, schools, hospitals, public baths, and grand imperial mosques. From 1520 to 1566, Suleiman the Magnificent controlled the Ottoman Empire and there were many artistic and architectural achievements that made it a major cultural, political, and commercial center. By the mid-1500s, the city’s population also grew to almost 1 million inhabitants. The Ottoman Empire ruled Istanbul until it was defeated and occupied by the allies in World War I.

The Republic of Turkey (1923-today)

Following its occupation by the allies in World War I, the Turkish War of Independence took place and Istanbul became a part of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Istanbul was not the capital city of the new republic and during the early years of its formation Istanbul was overlooked and investment went into the new centrally located capital Ankara. In the 1940s and 1950s though, Istanbul re-emerged new public squares, boulevards, and avenues were constructed. Because of the construction though, many of the city’s historic buildings were demolished.
In the 1970s, Istanbul’s population rapidly increased, causing the city to expand into the nearby villages and forests, eventually creating a major world metropolis.

Istanbul Today

Istanbul's many historical areas were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1985. In addition, because of its status as a world rising power, its history, importance to culture in both Europe and the world, Istanbul has been designated the European Capital of Culture for 2010 by the European Union.

Cleopatra.

Cleopatra VII was the last ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty, ruling Egypt from 51 BC - 30 BC. She is celebrated for her beauty and her love affairs with the Roman warlords Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
Cleopatra was born in 69 BC - 68 BC. When her father Ptolemy XII died in 51 BC, Cleopatra became co-regent with her 10-year-old brother Ptolemy XIII. They were married, in keeping with Egyptian tradition. Whether she was as beautiful as was claimed, she was a highly intelligent woman and an astute politician, who brought prosperity and peace to a country that was bankrupt and split by civil war.
In 48 BC, Egypt became embroiled in the conflict in Rome between Julius Caesar and Pompey. Pompey fled to the Egyptian capital Alexandria, where he was murdered on the orders of Ptolemy. Caesar followed and he and Cleopatra became lovers. Cleopatra, who had been exiled by her brother, was reinstalled as queen with Roman military support. Ptolemy was killed in the fighting and another brother was created Ptolemy XIII. In 47 BC, Cleopatra bore Caesar a child - Caesarion - though Caesar never publicly acknowledged him as his son. Cleopatra followed Caesar back to Rome, but after his assassination in 44 BC, she returned to Egypt. Ptolemy XIV died mysteriously at around this time, and Cleopatra made her son Caesarion co-regent.
In 41 BC, Mark Antony, at that time in dispute with Caesar's adopted son Octavian over the succession to the Roman leadership, began both a political and romantic alliance with Cleopatra. They subsequently had three children - two sons and a daughter. In 31 BC, Mark Antony and Cleopatra combined armies to take on Octavian's forces in a great sea battle at Actium, on the west coast of Greece. Octavian was victorious and Cleopatra and Mark Antony fled to Egypt. Octavian pursued them and captured Alexandria in 30 BC. With his soldiers deserting him, Mark Antony took his own life and Cleopatra chose the same course, committing suicide on 12 August 30 BC. Egypt became a province of the Roman Empire.

Istanbul. The city that is Asia on one side, but Europe on the other

Earliest times

Semistra, the earliest-known settlement on the site of İstanbul, was probably founded around 1000 BC, a few hundred years after the Trojan War and in the same period that kings David and Solomon ruled in Jerusalem. Semistra was followed by a fishing village named Lygos, which occupied Seraglio Point (Seray Burnu) where Topkapı Palace stands today.
Around 700 BC, colonists from Megara (near Corinth) in Greece founded the city of Chalcedon (now Kadıköy) on the Asian shore of the Bosphorus. Chalcedon became one of a dozen Greek fishing colonies along the shores of the Propontis (the ancient name for the Sea of Marmara). The historian Theopompus of Chios, cited in John Freely’s Istanbul: The Imperial City, wrote in the latter half of the 4th century that its inhabitants ‘devoted themselves unceasingly to the better pursuits of life’. Their way of life was apparently in stark contrast to that of the dissolute Byzantines, who founded their settlement across the Bosphorus at Seraglio Point in 657 BC.

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First incarnation: Byzantium

Legend tells us that Byzantium was founded by a Megarian colonist named Byzas, the son of the god Poseidon and the nymph Keroessa, daughter of Zeus and Io. Before leaving Greece, Byzas had asked the oracle at Delphi where he should establish his new colony. The enigmatic answer was ‘Opposite the blind’. All this made sense when Byzas and his fellow colonists sailed up the Bosphorus and noticed the colony on the Asian shore at Chalcedon. Looking west, they saw the small fishing village of Lygos, built on a magnificent and easily fortified natural harbour of the Golden Horn (known to the Greeks as Chrysokeras) on the European shore. Thinking, as legend has it, that the settlers of Chalcedon must have been blind to disregard such a superb position, Byzas and his mates settled here and their new town came to be called Byzantium after its founder.
The new colony quickly prospered, largely due to its ability to levy tolls and harbour fees on ships passing through the Bosphorus, then as now an important waterway. A thriving marketplace was established and the inhabitants lived on traded goods and the abundant fish stocks in the surrounding waters. In all, the early Byzantines were a fortunate lot. They walled their city to ensure its invincibility from attack, enslaved the local Thracian population to do most of the hard work and worshipped the Greek Olympian gods. Theopompus of Chios might have thought that the Chalcedons lived a good clean life when they first established their city on the opposite shore, but he had no such compliment for the Byzantines, writing that they ‘accustomed themselves to amours and drinking in the taverns’.
In 512 BC Darius, emperor of Persia, captured the city during his campaign against the Scythians. Following the retreat of the Persians in 478 BC, the town came under the influence and protection of Athens and joined the Athenian League. It was a turbulent relationship, with Byzantium revolting a number of times, only to be defeated by the Athenians. During one of the revolts, the Athenian navy mounted an expedition against Byzantium and Chalcedon and sailed up the Bosphorus to establish a settlement at Chrysopolis (‘the City of Gold’), site of the present-day suburb of Üsküdar. From this base they successfully besieged Byzantium.
The Spartans took the city after the end of the Peloponnesian War (404 BC) but were ousted in 390 BC, when Byzantium once again joined the League of Athens. It was granted independence in 355 BC but stayed under the Athenian umbrella, withstanding with Athenian help a siege by Philip, father of Alexander the Great, in 340 BC.
By the end of the Hellenistic period, Byzantium had formed an alliance with the Roman Empire. It retained its status as a free state, which it even kept after being officially incorporated into the Roman Empire in AD 79 by Vespasian, but it paid significant taxes for the privilege. Life was relatively uneventful until the city’s leaders made a big mistake: they picked the wrong side in a Roman war of succession following the death of the Emperor Pertinax in AD 193. When Septimius Severus emerged victorious over his rival Pescennius Niger, he mounted a three-year siege of the city, eventually massacring Byzantium’s citizens, razing its walls and burning it to the ground. Ancient Byzantium was no more.
The new emperor was aware of the city’s important strategic position, and he soon set about rebuilding it. He pardoned the remaining citizens and built a circuit of walls that stretched roughly from where the Yeni Camii is today to the Bucoleon Palace, enclosing a city twice the size of its predecessor. The Hippodrome was built by Severus, as was a colonnaded way that followed the present path of Divan Yolu. He also erected a gateway known as the Miliarium Aureum or, more simply, the Milion. A marble stellae from this gate can still be seen today. Severus named his new city Augusta Antonina and it was subsequently ruled by a succession of emperors, including the great Diocletian (r 284–303).

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Decline of Rome & the rise of Constantinople

Diocletian had decreed that after his retirement, the government of the Roman Empire should be overseen by co-emperors Galerius in the east (Augusta Antonina) and Constantine in the west (Rome). This resulted in a civil war, which was won by Constantine in AD 324 when he defeated Licinius, Galerius’ successor, at Chrysopolis.
With his victory, Constantine became sole emperor (r 324–37) of a reunited empire. He also became the first Christian emperor, though he didn’t formally convert until on his deathbed. To solidify his power he summoned the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea (İznik) in 325, which established the precedent of the emperor’s supremacy in church affairs.
Constantine also decided to move the capital of the empire to the shores of the Bosphorus. He built a new, wider circle of walls around the site of Byzantium and laid out a magnificent city within. The Hippodrome was extended and a forum was built on the crest of the second hill, near today’s Nuruosmaniye Camii. The city was dedicated on 11 May 330 as New Rome, but soon came to be called Constantinople. First settled as a fishing village over 1000 years earlier, the settlement on Seraglio Point was now the capital of the Eurasian world and would remain so for almost another 1000 years.
Constantine died in 337, just seven years after the dedication of his new capital. His empire was divided up between his three sons: Constantius, Constantien and Constans. Constantinople was part of Constantius’ share. His power base was greatly increased in 353 when he overthrew both of his brothers and brought the empire under his sole control.
Constantius died in 361 and was succeeded by his cousin Julian. Emperor Jovian was next, succeeded by Valens (of aqueduct fame).
The city continued to grow under the rule of the emperors. Theodosius I (‘the Great’) had a forum built on the present site of Beyazıt Square and a massive triumphal gate built in the city walls, the Porta Aurea (Golden Gate). He also erected the Obelisk of Theodosius at the Hippodrome. His grandson Emperor Theodosius II (r 408–50) came to the throne as a boy, heavily influenced by his sister Pulcheria, who acted as regent until her brother was old enough to rule in his own right. Threatened by the forces of Attila the Hun, he ordered that an even wider, more formidable circle of walls be built around the city. Encircling all seven hills of the city, the walls were completed in 413, only to be brought down by a series of earthquakes in 447. They were hastily rebuilt in a mere two months – the rapid approach of Attila and the Huns acting as a powerful stimulus. The Theodosian walls successfully held out invaders for the next 757 years and still stand today, though they are in an increasingly dilapidated state of repair.
Theodosius II’s other achievements were the compilation of the Codex Theodosianus, a collection of all of the laws that had been enacted since the reign of Constantine the Great, and the erection of a new cathedral, the Sancta Sophia (Aya Sofya), which replaced an earlier church of the same name that had been burned down during a riot in 404.

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Justinian & Theodora

Theodosius died in 450 and was succeeded by a string of emperors, including the most famous of all Byzantine emperors, Justinian.
During the 5th and 6th centuries, as the barbarians of Europe captured and sacked Rome, the new eastern capital grew in wealth, strength and reputation. Justinian (r 527–65) had much to do with this. A former soldier, he and his great general Belisarius reconquered Anatolia, the Balkans, Egypt, Italy and North Africa. They also successfully put down the Nika riots of 532, killing 30, 000 of the rioters in the Hippodrome in the process.
Three years before taking the throne, Justinian had married Theodora, a strong-willed former courtesan who is credited with having great influence over her husband. Together, they further embellished Constantinople with great buildings, including SS Sergius and Bacchus, now known as Küçük Aya Sofya, Hagia Eirene (Aya İrini) and the Basilica Cistern. Justinian’s personal triumph was the new Sancta Sophia (Aya Sofya), which was completed in 537.
Justinian’s ambitious building projects and constant wars of reconquest exhausted his treasury and his empire. Following his reign, the Byzantine Empire would never again be as large, powerful or rich.

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Under siege & in decline

From 565 to 1025, a succession of warrior emperors kept invaders such as the Persians and the Avars at bay. Though the foreign armies often managed to get as far as Chalcedon, none were able to breach Theodosius’ great walls. The Arab armies of the nascent Islamic empire tried in 669, 674, 678 and 717–18, each time in vain. Inside the walls the city was undergoing a different type of threat: the Iconoclastic Crisis. This began in 726 when Emperor Leo III launched his quest to rid the empire of all forms of idolatry. Those who worshipped idols, including the followers of many saints, revolted and a number of uprisings ensued. The emperor was ultimately triumphant and his policy was adopted by his successors. It was first overturned in 780, when the Empress Eirene, mother of the child emperor Constantine VI, set out to restore icons. The issue was finally put to rest by the Empress Theodora, mother of Michael III, another child emperor, in 845.
The powerful emperors of the Bulgarian empire besieged the city in 814, 913 and 924, never conquering it. Under Emperor Basil II (r 976–1025), the Byzantine armies drove the Arab armies out of Anatolia and completely annihilated the Bulgarian forces. For this feat he was dubbed Bulgaroctonus, the ‘Bulgar-slayer’.
In 1071 Emperor Romanus IV Diogenes (r 1068–1071) led his army to eastern Anatolia to do battle with the Seljuk Turks, who had been forced out of Central Asia by the encroaching Mongols. However, at Manzikert (Malazgirt) the Byzantines were disastrously defeated, the emperor captured and imprisoned, and the former Byzantine heartland of Anatolia thus thrown open to Turkish invasion and settlement. Soon the Seljuks had built a thriving empire of their own in central Anatolia, with their capital first at Nicaea and later at Konya.
As Turkish power was consolidated in Anatolia to the east of Constantinople, the power of Venice – always a maritime and commercial rival to Constantinople – grew in the west. This coincided with the launch of the First Crusade and the arrival in Constantinople of the first of the Crusaders in 1096.

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The Crusaders: interlopers from the West

Soldiers of the Second Crusade passed through the city in 1146 during the reign of Manuel I, son of John Comnenus II ‘The Good’ and his empress, Eirene, both of whose mosaic portraits can be seen in the gallery at Aya Sofya. In 1171 Manuel evicted Venetian merchants from their neighbourhood in Galata. The Venetians retaliated by sending a fleet to attack Byzantine ports in Greece.
The convoluted, treacherous imperial court politics of Constantinople have given us the word ‘Byzantine’. Rarely blessed with a simple, peaceful succession, Byzantine rulers were always under threat from members of their own families as well as would-be tyrants and foreign powers. This internecine plotting was eventually to lead to the defeat of the city by the Crusaders.
In 1195 Alexius III deposed and blinded his brother, Emperor Isaac II, claiming the throne for himself. Fleeing to the West, Isaac’s oldest son, Prince Alexius, pleaded to the Pope and other Western rulers for help in restoring his father to the Byzantine throne. At the time, the Fourth Crusade was assembling in Venice to sail to Egypt and attack the infidel. Knowing this, Prince Alexius sent a message to the Crusaders offering to agree to a union of the Greek and Roman churches under the papacy if the Crusaders could put his father back on the throne. He also promised to pay richly for their assistance. The Crusader leaders agreed, and Enrico Dandolo, Doge of Venice, led the crusaders to Constantinople, arriving in 1203.
Rather than facing the Crusaders, Alexius III fled with the imperial treasury. The Byzantines swiftly restored Isaac II to the throne and made Prince Alexius his co-emperor. Unfortunately, the new co-emperors had no money to pay their allies. They were also deeply unpopular with their subjects, being seen as Latin toadies. Isaac fell ill (he died in 1204), and the Byzantines swiftly deposed Alexius and crowned a new emperor, Alexius V. The new emperor foolishly ordered the Crusaders to leave his territory, conveniently ignoring the fact that they believed themselves to be owed a considerable amount of money by the Byzantines. Their patience exhausted, the Crusaders attacked. On 13 April 1204 they broke through the walls, and sacked and pillaged the rich capital of their Christian ally.
When the smoke cleared, Dandolo took control of three-eighths of the city, including Aya Sofya, leaving the rest to his co-conspirator Count Baldwin of Flanders. The Byzantine nobility fled to what was left of their estates and fought among themselves in best Byzantine fashion for control of the shreds of the empire.
After Dandolo’s death, Count Baldwin had himself crowned emperor of Romania (‘Kingdom of the Romans’), his name for his new kingdom. Never a strong or effective state, Baldwin’s so-called empire steadily declined until, just over half a century later in 1261, it was easily recaptured by the soldiers of Michael VIII Palaeologus, formerly the emperor of Nicaea, where the Byzantine Empire in exile sat. The Byzantine Empire was restored.

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The Ottomans: upstarts from the East

Two decades after Michael reclaimed Constantinople, a Turkish warlord named Ertuğrul died in the village of Söğüt near Nicaea. He left his son Osman, who was known as Gazi (Warrior for the Faith), a small territory. Osman’s followers became known in the Empire as Osmanlıs and in the West as the Ottomans.
Osman died in 1324 and was succeeded by his son Orhan. In 1326 Orhan captured Bursa, made it his capital and took the title of sultan. A victory at Nicaea followed, after which he sent his forces further afield, conquering Ankara to the east and Thrace to the west. His son Murat I (r 1362–89) took Adrianople (Edirne) in 1371 and extended his conquests to Kosovo, where he defeated the Serbs and Bosnians.
Murat’s son Beyazıt (r 1389–1402) unsuccessfully laid siege to Constantinople in 1394, then defeated a Crusader army 100, 000 strong on the Danube in 1396. Though temporarily checked by the armies of Tamerlane and a nasty war of succession between Beyazıt’s four sons that was eventually won by Mehmet I (r 1413–21), the Ottomans continued to grow in power and size. By 1440 the Ottoman armies under Murat II (r 1421–51) had taken Thessalonica, unsuccessfully laid siege to Constantinople and Belgrade, and battled Christian armies for Transylvania. It was at this point in history that Mehmet II ‘The Conqueror’ (r 1451–81) came to power and vowed to attain the ultimate prize – Constantinople.

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The conquest

By 1450, the Byzantine emperor had control over little more than Constantinople itself.
The first step in Mehmet’s plan to take the city was construction of the great fortress of Rumeli Hisarı, which was completed in 1452. He also repaired Anadolu Hisarı, the fortress on the Asian shore that had been built by his great-grandfather. Between them, the two great fortresses then closed the Bosphorus at its narrowest point, blockading the imperial capital from the north.
The Byzantines had closed the mouth of the Golden Horn with a heavy chain (on view in İstanbul’s Askeri Müzesi) to prevent Ottoman ships from sailing in and attacking the city walls on the north side. Mehmet outsmarted them by marshalling his boats at a cove where Dolmabahçe Palace now stands, and having them transported overland during the night on rollers and slides up the valley (where the İstanbul Hilton now stands) and down the other side into the Golden Horn at Kasımpaşa. As dawn broke his fleet attacked the city, catching the Byzantine defenders by surprise. Soon the Golden Horn was under Ottoman control.
As for the mighty Theodosian land walls to the west, a Hungarian cannon founder named Urban had offered his services to the Byzantine emperor for the defence of Christendom. Finding that the emperor had no money, he conveniently forgot about defending Christianity and went instead to Mehmet, who paid him richly to cast an enormous cannon capable of firing a huge ball right through the city walls.
Despite the inevitability of the conquest (Mehmet had 80,000 men compared with Byzantium’s 7000), Emperor Constantine XI (r 1449–53) refused the surrender terms offered by Mehmet on 23 May 1453, preferring to wait in hope that Christendom would come to his rescue. On 28 May the final attack commenced: the mighty walls were breached between the gates now called Topkapı and Edirnekapı, the sultan’s troops flooded in and by the evening of the 29th they were in control of every quarter. Constantine, the last emperor of Byzantium, died fighting on the city walls.

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The city ascendant

The 21-year-old conqueror saw himself as the successor to the imperial throne of Byzantium by right of conquest, and he began to rebuild and repopulate the city. Aya Sofya was converted to a mosque; a new mosque, the Fatih (Conqueror) Camii, was built on the fourth hill; and the Eski Saray (Old Palace) was constructed on the third hill, followed by a new palace at Topkapı a few years later. The city walls were repaired and a new fortress, Yedikule, was built. İstanbul, as it was often called, became the new administrative, commercial and cultural centre of the ever-growing Ottoman Empire. Mehmet encouraged Greeks who had fled the city to return and issued an imperial decree calling for resettlement; Muslims, Jews and Christians all took up his offer and were promised the right to worship as they pleased. The Genoese, who had fought with the Byzantines, were pardoned and allowed to stay in Galata, though the fortifications that surrounded their settlement were torn down. Only Galata Tower was allowed to stand.
Mehmet died in 1481 and was succeeded by Beyazıt II (r 1481–1512), who was ousted by his son, the ruthless Selim the Grim (r 1512–20), famed for executing seven grand viziers and numerous relatives during his relatively short reign.
The building boom that Mehmet kicked off was continued by his successors, with Selim’s son Süleyman the Magnificent (r 1520–66) being responsible for more construction than any other sultan. Blessed with the services of Mimar Sinan (1497–1588), Islam’s greatest architect, the sultan and his family, court and grand viziers crowded the city with great buildings. Under Süleyman’s 46-year reign, the longest of any sultan, the empire expanded its territories and refined its artistic pursuits at its court. None of the empires of Europe or Asia were as powerful.

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Rule of the women

Süleyman’s son Selim II (‘the Sot’, r 1566–74) and his successors lost themselves in the pleasures of the harem and the bottle, and cared little for the administration of the empire their forebears had built. While they were carousing, a succession of exceptionally able grand viziers dealt with external and military affairs.
Before the drunken Selim drowned in his bath, his chief concubine Nurbanu called the shots in the palace and ushered in the so-called ‘Rule of the Women’, whereby a series of chief concubines and mothers (valide sultans) of a series of dissolute sultans ruled the roost at court. Among the most fascinating of these women was Kösem Sultan, the favourite of Sultan Ahmet I (r 1603–17). She influenced the course of the empire through Ahmet, then through her sons Murat IV (r 1623–40) and İbrahim, (‘the Mad’, r 1640–48) and finally through her grandson Mehmet IV (r 1648–87). Her influence over Mehmet lasted only a few years and she was strangled in 1651 at the command of the valide sultan Turhan Hadice, Mehmet’s mother.
For the next century the sultans continued in Selim’s footsteps. Their dissolute and often unbalanced behaviour led to dissatisfaction among the people and the army, which would eventually prove to be the empire’s undoing.

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Decline, then attempts at reform

The motor that drove the Ottoman Empire was military conquest, and when the sultan’s armies reached their geographical and technological limits, decline set in for good. In 1683 the Ottomans laid siege for the second time to Vienna, but failed again to take the city. With the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, the Austrian and Ottoman emperors divided up the Balkans, and the Ottoman Empire went on the defensive.
By this time Europe was well ahead of Turkey in politics, technology, science, banking, commerce and military development. Sultan Selim III (r 1789–1807) initiated efforts to catch up to Europe, but was overthrown in a revolt by janissaries (the sultan’s personal bodyguards). The modernisation efforts were continued under Mahmut II (r 1808–39). He founded a new army along European lines, provoking a riot among the janissaries, so that in 1826 he had to send his new force in to crush them, which it did. The bodies of janissaries filled the Hippodrome and the ancient corps, once the glory of the empire, was no more.
Sultan Abdül Mecit (r 1839–61) continued the catch-up, continuing the Tanzimat (Reorganisation) political and social reforms that had been initiated by his father Mahmut II. But these efforts were too little, too late. During the 19th century, ethnic nationalism, a force more powerful even than Western armies, penetrated the empire’s domain and proved its undoing.

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Ethnic nationalism

For centuries, the non-Turkish ethnic and non-Muslim religious minorities in the sultan’s domains had lived side by side with their Turkish neighbours, governed by their own religious and traditional laws. The head of each community – chief rabbi, Orthodox patriarch etc – was responsible to the sultan for the community’s wellbeing and behaviour.
Ottoman decline and misrule provided fertile ground for the growth of ethnic nationalism among these communities. The subject peoples of the Ottoman Empire rose in revolt, one after another, often with the direct encouragement and assistance of the European powers, who coveted parts of the sultan’s vast domains. After bitter fighting in 1831 the Kingdom of Greece was formed; the Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians, Albanians, Armenians and Arabs would all seek their independence soon after.
As the sultan’s empire broke up, the European powers (Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Russia) hovered in readiness to colonise or annex the pieces. They used religion as a reason for pressure or control, saying that it was their duty to protect the sultan’s Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox subjects from misrule and anarchy.
The Russian emperors put pressure on the Turks to grant them powers over all Ottoman Orthodox Christian subjects, whom the Russian emperor would thus ‘protect’. The result was the Crimean War (1853–56), with Britain and France fighting on the side of the Ottomans against the growth of Russian power. During the war, wounded British, French and Ottoman soldiers were brought to İstanbul for treatment at the Selimiye Army Barracks, now home to the Florence Nightingale Museum, and the foundations of modern nursing practice were laid.
Even during the war, the sultan continued the imperial building tradition. Vast Dolmabahçe Palace and its mosque were finished in 1856, and the palaces at Beylerbeyi, Çırağan and Yıldız would be built before the end of the century. Though it had lost the fabulous wealth of the days of Süleyman the Magnificent, the city was still regarded as the Paris of the East. It was also the terminus of the Orient Express, which connected İstanbul and Paris – the world’s first great international luxury express train.

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Abdül Hamit II & the young Turks

Amid the empire’s internal turmoil, Abdül Hamit II (r 1876–1909) assumed the throne. Mithat Paşa, a successful general and powerful grand vizier, managed to introduce a constitution at the same time, but soon the new sultan did away both with Mithat Paşa and the constitution, and established his own absolute rule.
Abdül Hamit modernised without democratising, building thousands of kilometres of railways and telegraph lines and encouraging modern industry. However, the empire continued to disintegrate, and there were nationalist insurrections in Armenia, Bulgaria, Crete and Macedonia.
The younger generation of the Turkish elite – particularly the military – watched bitterly as their country fell apart, then organised secret societies bent on toppling the sultan. The Young Turk movement for Western-style reforms gained enough power by 1908 to force the restoration of the constitution. In 1909 the Young Turk-led Ottoman parliament deposed Abdül Hamit and put his hopelessly indecisive brother Mehmet V on the throne.
When WWI broke out, the Ottoman parliament and sultan made the fatal error of siding with Germany and the Central Powers. With their defeat, the Ottoman Empire collapsed, İstanbul was occupied by the British and the sultan became a pawn in the hands of the victors.

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Republican Istanbul

The situation looked very bleak for the Turks as their armies were being disbanded and their country was taken under the control of the Allies, but what first seemed a catastrophe provided the impetus for rebirth.
Since gaining independence in 1831, the Greeks had entertained the Megali Idea (Great Plan) of a new Greek empire encompassing all the lands that had once had Greek influence – in effect, the refounding of the Byzantine Empire, with Constantinople as its capital. On 15 May 1919, with Western backing, Greek armies invaded Anatolia in order to make the dream a reality.
Even before the Greek invasion an Ottoman general named Mustafa Kemal, the hero of the WWI battle at Gallipoli, had decided that a new government must take over the destiny of the Turks from the ineffectual sultan. He began organising resistance to the sultan’s captive government on 19 May 1919.
The Turkish War of Independence, in which the Turkish Nationalist forces led by Mustafa Kemal fought off Greek, French and Italian invasion forces, lasted from 1920 to 1922. Victory in the bitter war put Mustafa Kemal (1881–1938) in command of the fate of the Turks. The sultanate was abolished in 1922, as was the Ottoman Empire soon after. The republic was born on 29 October 1923.

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Downgraded: no longer the capital

The nation’s saviour, proclaimed Atatürk (Father Turk) by the Turkish parliament, decided to move away, both metaphorically and physically, from the imperial memories of İstanbul. He established the seat of the new republican government in a city (Ankara) that could not be threatened by foreign gunboats. Robbed of its importance as the capital of a vast empire, İstanbul lost much of its wealth and glitter in succeeding decades.
Atatürk had always been ill at ease with Islamic traditions and he set about making the Republic of Turkey a secular state. The fez (Turkish brimless cap) was abolished, as was polygamy; Friday was replaced by Sunday as the day of rest; surnames were introduced; the Arabic alphabet was replaced by a Latin script; and civil (not religious) marriage became mandatory. The country’s modernisation was accompanied by a great surge of nationalistic pride, and though it was no longer the political capital, İstanbul continued to be the centre of the nation’s cultural and economic life.
Atatürk died in İstanbul in 1938, just before WWII broke out, and was succeeded as president by Ismet İnönü. Still scarred from the calamity of its involvement in the Great War, Turkey managed to successfully stay out of the new conflict until 1945, when it entered on the Allied side.

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The coup years

The Allies made it clear that they believed that Turkey should introduce democracy. The government agreed and called parliamentary elections. The first opposition party in Turkey’s history – the Democratic Party led by Adnan Menderes – won the first of these elections in 1950.
Though he started as a democrat, Menderes became increasingly autocratic. In 1960 the military staged a coup against his government and convicted him and two of his ministers of treason. All three were hanged in 1961. New elections were held and a government was formed, but it and ensuing administrations were dogged by corruption charges, and constitutional violations and amendments. In 1971 the military staged another coup, only to repeat the process in 1980 and install a military junta, which ruled for three years before new elections were called. It seemed to many observers that the far left and extreme right factions in the country would never be able to reconcile, and that military coups would be a constant feature of the modern political landscape. However, voters in the 1983 election refused to see this as a fait accompli and, rather than voting in the military’s preferred candidates, elected the reforming Motherland party of economist Turgut Özal. A new era had begun.

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The recent past

Under the presidency of economist Turgut Özal, the 1980s saw a free market-led economic and tourism boom in Turkey and its major city. Özal’s government also presided over a great increase in urbanisation, with trainloads of peasants from eastern Anatolia making their way to the cities – particularly İstanbul – in search of jobs in the booming industry sector. The city’s infrastructure couldn’t cope back then and is still catching up, despite nearly three decades of large-scale municipal works being undertaken.
The municipal elections of March 1994 were a shock to the political establishment, with the upstart religious-right Refah Partisi (Welfare Party) winning elections across the country. Its victory was seen in part as a protest vote against the corruption, ineffective policies and tedious political wrangles of the traditional parties. In İstanbul Refah was led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a proudly Islamist candidate. He vowed to modernise infrastructure and restore the city to its former glory.
In the national elections of December 1996, Refah polled more votes than any other party (23%), and eventually formed a government vowing moderation and honesty. Emboldened by political power, Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan and other Refah politicians tested the boundaries of Turkey’s traditional secularism, alarming the powerful National Security Council, the most visible symbol of the centrist military establishment’s role as the caretaker of secularism and democracy.
In 1997 the council announced that Refah had flouted the constitutional ban on religion in politics and warned that the government should resign or face a military coup. Bowing to the inevitable, Erbakan did as the council wished. In İstanbul, Mayor Erdoğan was ousted by the secularist forces in the national government in late 1998.
National elections in April 1999 brought in a coalition government led by Bülent Ecevit’s left-wing Democratic Left Party. After years under the conservative right of the Refah Partisi, the election result heralded a shift towards European-style social democracy, something highlighted by the country’s successful bid to be accepted as a candidate for membership of the European Union. Unfortunately for the new government there was a spectacular collapse of the Turkish economy in 2001, leading to an electoral defeat in 2002. The victorious party was the moderate Islamic Justice and Development Party, led by Phoenix-like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who – despite continuing tensions with military hardliners – has run an increasingly stable and prosperous Turkey ever since.


Read more: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/turkey/istanbul/history#ixzz2pck9ZNTI
Istanbul was gorgeous! It was a wonderful city and I enjoyed our trip there a lot. The historical sites are extremely impressive and the mixture between Christianity and Islam is particularly prevalent throughout the sites. I would recommend it to anybody!