Description

For over a thousand years, Constantinople stood as the glittering crown of Christendom, a bastion of civilization at the crossroads of East and West. In Constantinople: Its Rise, Fall, and Enduring Legacy, author and historian G.K. Mew traces the awe-inspiring arc of the city’s history—from its founding by Constantine the Great to its tragic fall to the Ottomans in 1453.

But this is not merely the story of a city’s fall. It is the story of what its fall unleashed. As the last ramparts of the Eastern Roman Empire crumbled, waves of knowledge, art, and classical learning flooded westward—igniting the Renaissance and reshaping Europe. Refugees, scholars, and sacred texts found new homes in Italy and beyond, sowing the seeds of rebirth just as darkness seemed to encroach.

The book also reveals how Constantinople’s spiritual and political legacy endured far beyond its walls. In the East, Russia inherited its mantle as the “Third Rome,” drawing inspiration and legitimacy from Byzantium’s Orthodox faith and imperial ideology. In Central Europe, newly emerging Christian states formed bulwarks against Ottoman expansion, culminating in dramatic showdowns that saved Vienna—and Western Christendom—from Islamic conquest.