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‘An enthralling guide to one of the world’s great cities – that blends history and insights into the present day from one of the most astute commentators on the politics of Istanbul’ PETER FRANKOPAN

‘A love letter to this ancient capital’ THE TIMES

Walking along the crumbling defensive walls of Istanbul and talking to those he passes, Alexander Christie-Miller finds a distillation of the country’s history, a mirror of its present, and a shadow of its future.

Caught between two seas and two continents, Istanbul lies at the centre of the most pressing challenges of our time. With environmental decay, rapacious development and tightening authoritarianism straining its social fabric to breaking point, it represents the precipitous moment civilizations around the world are currently facing.

In and around its crumbling Byzantine-era fortifications, Alexander Christie-Miller meets people who are experiencing the looming crisis and fighting back, sometimes triumphing despite the odds.

To the City seamlessly blends two narratives: the story of Turkey’s tumultuous recent past told through the lives of those who live around the walls, and the story of Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II’s siege and capture of the city in 1453. That event still looms large in Turkey, as Recep Tayyip Erdogan like a latter-day sultan invokes its memory as part of his effort to transform the country in an echo of its imperial past.

This is a meditation on the soul of Istanbul, a paean to its resilience and fortitude. Walk with Christie-Miller and see the danger, beauty and hope.

‘Deftly weaving together Istanbul’s past and present, Christie-Miller’s work is a beautifully written, nuanced examination of a city whose story is so often told in binaries’

Louise Callaghan, Turkey and Middle East correspondent for the Sunday Times and author of Father of Lions Speak

Publisher Review

EARLY PRAISE FOR TO THE CITY 'Alexander Christie-Miller is an exceptionally fluent and imaginative writer who knows Turkey intimately' Max Hastings 'A lyrical tribute to Istanbul, a city where the present is always struggling against the past. More than that, it's an indispensable guide to the nuances, complexities and contradictions of Ottoman and Turkish history' Hannah Lucinda Smith, author of Erdogan Rising 'Alexander Christie-Miller writes with great eloquence and clarity about our fluid, Protean, multi-layered Istanbul, the city he made his home for years. As in his investigative reporting from the 2010s, which exposed the tyrannical political thirst behind Erdogan's push for 'democratisation', his writing excavates something precious and vital: truth' Kaya Genc, author of Under the Shadow 'Deftly weaving together Istanbul's past and present, Christie-Miller's work is a beautifully written, nuanced examination of a city whose story is so often told in binaries' Louise Callaghan, Turkey and Middle East correspondent for the Sunday Times and author of Father of Lions Speak