Children of Achilles

Since the days of Troy historic lands of Asia Minor have been home to Greeks. They are steeped in a rich fusion of Greek and Turkish culture and the histories of both are irrevocably entwined, fatefully connected. "Children of Achilles" tells the epic and ultimately tragic story of the Greek presence in Anatolia, beginning with the Trojan War and culminating in 1923 with the devastating population exchange that followed the Turkish War of Independence. The once magnificent, now ruined, cities that cluster along the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts of Turkey are reminders of a civilization that produced the first Hellenic enlightenment, giving birth to Homer, Herodotus and the first philosophers of nature. For more three millennia the Anatolian Greeks preserved their identity and culture as the tides of history washed over them, enduring conflicts that historians since Herodotus have seen as an unending clash of civilizations between East and West. Today, the memory of the Greek diaspora from Asia Minor lives on in the music of rebetika, the threnodies known as amanadas, and the poetry of Seferis, and even now the descendants of those exiles speak with nostalgia of 'i kath'imas Anatoli' - our own Anatolia, their lost homeland. This, told for the first time, is their story, from glorious beginnings to a bitter end, a story that continues to echo through the ages and across continents.

ISBN 184511941X   Pages 288 ISBN13 9781845119416 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 635 Publisher I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd   Published in London Imprint I.B.Tauris   Height (mm) 234 Format Hardback   Width (mm) 156 Publication date 30 Nov 2009   Spine width (mm) 28 DEWEY 939.20048   Academic level Further/Higher education DEWEY edition DC22

		List of Illustrations
		Prologue - The Trojan Plain
1		The Achaeans in Anatolia		1
2		The Great Migration		10
3		The Archaic Renaissance		21
4		The Persian Wars		34
5		Between East and West		42
6		Alexander's Dream		52
7		Alexander's Successors		66
8		Roman Rule and Revelation		81
9		New Rome		93
10		The Age of Justinian		107
11		Medieval Byzantium		118
12		Seljuk Turks and Crusaders		127
13		The Latin Occupation		138
14		The Sons of Osman		148
15		The Fall of Byzantium		162
16		The Tide of Conquest Turns		173
17		Tourkokrateia and the Rhomaioi		189
18		Megali Idea and Catastrophia		203
19		Exodus and Diaspora		214
20		Ionian Elegy		224
		Source Notes		235
		Bibliography		247
		Index		259

"A dynamic narrative" -- Paul Watkins, "Anglo-Hellenic Review" Praise for "Aladdin's Lamp" "A sinuous odyssey . . . Freely chronicles the transmission of scientific ideas from ancient Greece and Rome to an early modern Europe on the cusp of the scientific revolution." -"Booklist ""Freely extensively documents Islamic works that gave us words like algebra and algorithm and dusted off the even more ancient Hindu numerals now universally employed." -"Kirkus """"Informative and intriguing . . . Freely shows how Western science developed in relation to-and in controversy with-ancient Greek ideas about matter, light, motion and the structure of the heavens." -"Publishers Weekly " Praise for "Strolling through Istanbul""A classic. The best travel guide to Istanbul."--"The Times" "A guide book that reads like a novel." "-" William F. Buckley, " The New York Times"

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