Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)As I read the text and admired the beautiful photographs of Jeremy Stafford-Deitsch's most recent work, I couldn't help but wish that it had been published years before when I was traveling through Europe in my early twenties. Had I realized that ruins on this scale exist in Turkey, I would have strayed a little farther off of the backpacker's beaten path during those footloose days. From the Neolithic discoveries at Çatalhöyuk through Schliemann's claims at Troy, to the fall of the Byzantine Empire and the establishment of the Ottoman, Jeremy Stafford-Deitsch touches on all of the mighty players with whom we are familiar, and a great deal more with whom we are sadly not.
Yet the book is not just a compilation of photos, or a dry-as-dust timeline of civilization upon civilization. Instead, the reader is invited to discover the quiet but powerful significance of ruins that once rang with life, with the voices of people long since dead - communicating to the modern world through their monumental works. Stafford-Deitsch is not the first to discover these ruins; nor shall he be the last, and the easy progression of photos somehow recognizes and embraces this fact - weaving eighteenth century line drawings and artist's interpretations in with the breathtaking sites as we see them today. This in itself is significant; as one generation builds upon and revisits the discoveries of the ones before.
The large format photographs so loved by this author/photographer, are, as always, beautifully composed, sharp and well framed (see: The Monuments of Ancient Egypt by JSD) - and betray an eye that sees beyond the tangible to capture the sublime. Apart from the image that opens his text there is not the merest glimpse of a human being in the shots, yet his photos are never lacking in humanity.
I would highly recommend this well-researched and fascinating book, as much for the quality of the photos, as for the history lesson with a refreshing dose of philosophy and introspection. Stafford-Deitsch does a fine job of chronicling the rise and fall of the many civilizations that have peopled Anatolia's mountains, landscapes and shores over the millennia. I shall certainly turn to it for inspiration when I shelve the mortgage and grab the backpack once again!
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