John Freely: 17 books
A Travel Guide to Homer
On the Trail of Odysseus Through Turkey and the Mediterranean
Language: English
Release Date: April 21, 2014
In October 1945 at the age of 19, John Freely passed the southernmost tip of Crete on his way home from the war in China, just as Odysseus did on his homeward voyage from the battle of Troy. He has been bewitched by Homer and the lands of Homer's epics ever since. As the culmination of a life spent...
by John Cleave, John Freely
Language: English
Release Date: February 10, 2012
Language: English
Release Date: February 10, 2012
Standing astride two continents, surrounded by a garland of water, the past capital of two empires and of modern Turkey, and with visible history that stretches back nearly three millenia, Istanbul is, simply, unique.And stunning. It's historic centre is all that the tourist posters claim:...
The House of Memory
Reflections on Youth and War
Language: English
Release Date: March 7, 2017
In this funny and tender memoir, John Freely reflects on a remarkable life. Splitting his early childhood between the U.S. and Ireland inspired in Freely a lifelong desire to see the world and its inhabitants. At age six he settled in Brooklyn, where he spent a sometimes tumultuous boyhood amidst...
The Grand Turk
Sultan Mehmet II-Conqueror of Constantinople and Master of an Empire
Language: English
Release Date: October 1, 2009
Sultan Mehmet II, known to his countrymen as 'the Conqueror' and to much of Europe as 'the Terror of the World,' was once Europe's most feared and powerful ruler. Now, Turkey?s most beloved American scholar, John Freely, brings to life this charismatic hero of one of the richest histories in the world....
Stamboul Sketches
Encounters in Old Istanbul
Language: English
Release Date: February 3, 2015
Throughout the 1960s, John Freely explored the alleys, hidden corners and monuments of Istanbul, in between teaching, to create a legendary guidebook with Hilary Sumner-Boyd. But all the passages that were too personal, too capricious, too idiosyncratic, too indulgent of eccentric personalities, too...
by John Freely
Language: English
Release Date: February 17, 2009
Language: English
Release Date: February 17, 2009
Aladdin’s Lamp is the fascinating story of how ancient Greek philosophy and science began in the sixth century B.C. and, during the next millennium, spread across the Greco-Roman world, producing the remarkable discoveries and theories of Thales, Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Euclid,...
The Art of Exile
A Vagabond Life
Language: English
Release Date: April 29, 2016
By the time he was six, John Freely had crossed the Atlantic four times. His childhood was spent on the mean streets of 1930s Brooklyn, where he scavenged for junk to sell and borrowed money for books; his first love being Homer's Odyssey. He was 15 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and 17 when he...
El mundo de Homero
Una guía de viaje por la Ilíada y la Odisea
Language: Spanish
Release Date: June 2, 2015
«Este libro –nos dice John Freely- quiere ser una guía por la Ilíada y la Odisea de Homero, que llevará al viajero desde Troya a lo largo de las costas del Egeo turco, y de allí hacia las playas del Mediterráneo, siguiendo las huellas de Odiseo cuando regresaba de la guerra de Troya y, después...
Istanbul
The Imperial City
Language: English
Release Date: February 26, 1998
Istanbul's history is a catalogue of change, not least of name, yet it has managed to retain its own unique identity. John Freely captures the flavour of daily life as well as court ceremonial and intrigue. The book also includes a comprehensive gazetteer of all major monuments and museums. An in-depth...
Before Galileo
The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe
Language: English
Release Date: August 27, 2013
Virtually nothing is said about the European scholars who came before. In reality, more than a millennium before the Renaissance, a succession of scholars paved the way for the exciting discoveries usually credited to Galileo, Newton, Copernicus, and others. In Before Galileo, physicist and historian...
Strolling Through Istanbul
The Classic Guide to the City
Language: English
Release Date: November 30, 2009
This classic guide to Istanbul by Hilary Sumner-Boyd and John Freely - the 'best travel guide to Istanbul' (The Times), 'a guide book that reads like a novel' (New York Times) - is here, for the first time since its original publication thirty-seven years ago, published in a completely revised and...
by John Freely
Language: English
Release Date: November 27, 2012
Language: English
Release Date: November 27, 2012
Long-awaited new edition of the Blue Guide to this fascinating city, which straddles Europe and the Orient and whose history goes back to the days of ancient Greece. Superb coverage of all the major monuments, Classical, Christian and Islamic, with details on how to get around a busy city, what to...
Light from the East
How the Science of Medieval Islam helped to shape the Western World
Language: English
Release Date: December 18, 2010
Long before the European Renaissance, while the western world was languishing in what was once called the 'Dark Ages', the Arab world was ablaze with the knowledge, invention and creativity of its Golden Age. This is the story of how Islamic science, which began with the translation of Greek manuscripts...
Inside the Seraglio
Private Lives of the Sultans in Istanbul
Language: English
Release Date: October 11, 2016
This is the story of the House of Osman, the imperial dynasty that ruled the Ottoman Empire for more than seven centuries, an empire that once stretched from central Europe to North Africa and from Persia to the Adriatic. The capital of this empire was Istanbul, ancient Byzantium, a city that stands...
12