Introduction -- Byzantion, Bryzas' City, 800,000 BC - AD 311 -- Constantinople, City of God, AD 311-475 -- The new Rome, AD 476-565 -- The world's desire, AD 565-1050 -- City of war, AD 1050-1320 -- Allah's city, AD 1320-AD 1575 (Islamic calendar 720-983) -- Imperial city, AD 1550-1800 (Islamic calendar 957-1215) -- City of revolt and opportunity, AD 1800 (Islamic calendar 1215) onwards -- Coda

Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul-- one city, where stories and histories collide. The gateway between East and West, North and South, it has been the capital city of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. Hughes takes us on an historical journey from the Neolithic to the present, exploring the ways that Istanbul's influence has spun out to shape the wider world. This is the story not just of emperors, viziers, caliphs, and sultans, but of the poor and the voiceless, of the women and men whose aspirations and dreams have continuously reinvented Istanbul