Istanbul : city of majesty at the crossroads of the world / Thomas F. Madden.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part I. Byzantion (667 BC-AD 330) -- Across from the city of the blind -- Bread for Athens -- Romans bearing gifts -- Ruin and survival -- Part II. Byzantine Constantinople (330-1453) -- Founding a new Rome -- Baptized capital -- East of the fall of Rome -- City of Justinian -- Surviving the Middle Ages -- Byzantine plots -- Dining with barbarians -- Treasure and treachery -- Blind men -- Latin occupation -- Life among the ruins -- Empire's end -- Part III. Ottoman Constantinople (1453-1923) -- The spider's curtain -- City of Suleiman the Magnificent -- The sultanate of women -- Return of the West -- Sick man of Europe -- Empire's end, again -- Part IV. Istanbul (1923-2016) -- Becoming modern.

For more than two millennia Istanbul has stood at the crossroads of the world. The history of this city--known as Byzantium, then Constantinople, now Istanbul--is at once glorious, outsized, and astounding. Founded by the Greeks, its location made it a center for trade but also a target for every empire in history. At its most spectacular, Emperor Constantine I refounded the city as New Rome, filling it with artistic treasures, adorning the streets with opulent palaces, and building new walls that preserved its power and wealth--walls that withstood any aggressor and still stand for tourists to visit today. Drawing on a lifetime of study and the latest scholarship, Istanbul transports readers to a city of unparalleled importance and majesty, a city at the center of civilizations past and present.