May 24 2020
Where Jonathan Riley-Smith provided an overview of crusading as a movement over many centuries, Jonathan Phillips looks closely at one particular crusade, with an eye toward answering the question of why an expedition intended to take Jerusalem and other sites in the Holy Land wound up instead besieging, conquering and sacking Constantinople. Apparently this was …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2020/05/24/the-fourth-crusade-by-jonathan-phillips/
Sep 28 2019
Entirely too much time has passed since I read Francis Spufford’s wonderful first novel (after five mostly non-fictional books, of which it has so far only been my pleasure to read Red Plenty) Golden Hill for me to be able to do it anything approaching justice. Nevertheless, a few words. The story is set in …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2019/09/28/golden-hill-by-francis-spufford/
Jun 16 2017
“So far from a sideshow to the First World War, the Ottoman theater was central to both the outbreak of European war in 1914 and the peace settlement that truly ended it.” (p. xviii) In The Ottoman Endgame, Sean McMeekin makes a strong argument that understanding the First World War without understanding the part of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/06/16/the-ottoman-endgame-by-sean-mcmeekin/
Mar 12 2017
Of all the places that I have visited, Istanbul almost certainly heads the list of those I would like to return to. Arriving in April of 1993, at the beginning of what I thought was six months of travel before going broke in Ireland, I was struck by how European the city was. This despite …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2017/03/12/istanbul-by-thomas-f-madden/
Oct 21 2015
There isn’t a zeppelin on the cover to let readers know this is an alternate history, but by way of making up for it, Elizabeth Bear sets the book’s first story on board hydrogen-filled German airship. The Hans Glücker is on its way from Calais to the jewel of British North America, the eponymous New …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/10/21/new-amsterdam-by-elizabeth-bear/
Feb 25 2015
Where to start when writing about a city as vast and storied as Istanbul? In Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul, Charles King takes an inflection point in the history of a city that is itself a key inflection between East and West. Or rather, he takes a period of hinges …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2015/02/25/midnight-at-the-pera-palace-by-charles-king/
Oct 23 2011
“What do I think about the legacy of Atatürk, General? Let it go. I don’t care. The age of Atatürk is over.” Guests stiffen around the table, breath subtly indrawn; social gasps. This is heresy. People have been shot down in the streets of Istanbul for less. Adnan commands every eye. “Atatürk was father of …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2011/10/23/the-dervish-house-by-ian-mcdonald/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire