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A review by caidyn
Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes
Did not finish book.
DNF at 7%
As I said, this is going to be a pretty short review. I'm always faster at DNFing books during the school year. While this book is definitely good and jam packed with tons of history, my rating more reflects the fact that you actually have to have some background knowledge to understand this book. I have no background knowledge. Each chapter in this book is more a vignette about a certain point in the city's history. Alas, I don't know the history and therefore the little vignettes made no sense to me since I had to do so much work with keeping names straight and dates and various other things when all this information was thrown at me, only to barely come up again in the next chapter. That makes this book unique, but also really hard for someone who doesn't research ancient times or things in the Eastern world in general.
As I said, this is going to be a pretty short review. I'm always faster at DNFing books during the school year. While this book is definitely good and jam packed with tons of history, my rating more reflects the fact that you actually have to have some background knowledge to understand this book. I have no background knowledge. Each chapter in this book is more a vignette about a certain point in the city's history. Alas, I don't know the history and therefore the little vignettes made no sense to me since I had to do so much work with keeping names straight and dates and various other things when all this information was thrown at me, only to barely come up again in the next chapter. That makes this book unique, but also really hard for someone who doesn't research ancient times or things in the Eastern world in general.