KWR Book Review

Nanomi Shiono, The Fall of Constantinople (New York: Vertical, Inc., 2005). 240 pages. $19.95.

Reviewed by Scott B. MacDonald

Click here to purchase Nanomi Shiono's book, "The Fall of Constantinople" directly from Amazon.com

The fall of Constantinople in 1453 is an event that continues to intrigue.  It was, after all, a climax to one of the earlier clashes of civilizations, this time between the rising power of the Ottoman Turks, led by a youthful and ruthless leader and the spent power of the Byzantine Empire, confined to the city limited and a few holdings in the Aegean and mainland Greece.  In many regards, the fall of this formerly majestic city represented the end of one civilization and the beginning of another.  For that matter, Nanomi Shiono's The Fall of Constantinople is part of a renewed interest in what some have regarded in Huntington terms, a civilization "fault line."  Other recent titles include Jonathan Phillips, “The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople” and Roger Crowley's 1453: “The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West”.

In a compact 240 pages, Shiono, one of Japan's foremost historians living in Rome, marches a cast of historical players, including Constantine XI (the last Byzantine Emperor) and Sultan Mehmed II (his Ottoman opponent) as well as a host of others, including Venetian admirals,  and Genoese and Serbian knights.  The significance of Constantinople in 1453 is captured by Shiono early in her tale: "It is not unusual, in the annals of history, for the fall of a city to be bound up with the destruction of a nation. Yet how many times in the long history of the human race has the fall of city heralded the end of an entire civilization, and one that had exerted a significant influence on the surrounding world over the course of many centuries?'  Shiono answers her own question: "Constantinople is unusual because we know with certainty not only the day of its death, but the day of its birth as well."

And so Shiono tells the story of the rise and fall of "New Rome", as Constantinople was first called.  The reader is quickly marched through the creation of the city, the development of the empire apart from the Roman Empire in the West (around Rome), its survival and apex, probably during the Justinian era of 565 AD.  We then follow the empire's course into decay and collapse, leaving the once great empire a decadent shell of itself before the rising power of the Ottomans.

Shinio provides a personal touch as she takes the reader through the story with each major persona in the build-up of the siege in 1453.  Although there is a certain amount of creative license, Shiono has made use of historical documents, some of which contain eyewitness accounts.  The only negative aspect of the book is that Shiono leaves the reader asking for more - she covers a considerable sweep of history within a sparse diet of pages.

Shiono's The Fall of Constantinople is a compelling and engaging account of one of the more momentous events in history. It is certainly well worth the read, especially for readers first entering the subject.  The book is part of what is to be the East Mediterranean trilogy, which includes “The Defense of Rhode”s and the forthcoming “The Battle of Lepanto”.  All three books will eventually be published by Vertical, Inc., a New York publishing house dedicated to bringing the best of Japanese non-fiction and fiction to English-language readers.