Introduction

Byzantion, Byzas' City, 800,000 BC-AD 311. Bones, stones and mud ; City of the blind ; City of light ; Persian fire ; City of siege ; Wine and witches ; All roads lead from Rome : the Egnatian way ; The enemy within ; Persecution ; The meek shall inherit the earth

Constantinople, City of God, AD 311-475. The battle of Milvian Bridge ; City of gold ; In the name of Christ's Blood ; Queen of cities ; Faith, hope, charity and the Nicene Creed ; Helena ; Births and deaths ; Pagans and pretenders ; The problem with Goths ; A dove of peace or a fist of iron : Theodosios ; Battles in Heaven and on earth : Gaza and Alexandria : Christian particles in a pagan atmosphere : Nova Roma ; Statues in the sky : ascetics ; Sex and the city : eunuchs ; The sack of Old Rome : the problem with Goths, part two ; Vandals, wisdom and Attila the Hun

The new Rome, AD 476-565. City of the Mother of God ; The golden age ; Earthquakes and fires ; The Phoenix city ; Spectacular, spectacular ; Law and order ; The Jewish city ; The classical city ; All is vanity

The world's desire, AD 565-1050. The silkworm's journey ; Al-Qustantiniyya ; A bone in the throat of Allah ; Monks by night, lions by day ; Byzantium and Britannia ; Icons and iconoclasm ; Viking foe-friends and the birth of Russia ; Within the walls ; The Varangian Guard

City of war, AD 1050-1320. A great schism? ; 1071,1081, and all that ; The city of crusades ; Negotiating monks and homicidal usurpers ; Venetian peril, chivalric kingdoms

Allah's city, AD 1320-AD 1575 (Islamic calendar 720-983). Yıldırım : the thunderbolt ; No country for old men ; Twilight city ; The abode of felicity ; One God in heaven, one empire on earth ; Renaissance city ; A garden of mixed fruit ; A diamond between two sapphires ; The Muslim millennium

Imperial city, AD 1550-1800 (Islamic calendar 957-1215). Gunpowder empires and gunning personalities ; dragomans and eunuchs ; The Sultanate of women ; The Janissaries ; The great siege of Vienna ; The white slave trade and the white plague ; White Caucasians ; Soap and smallpox ; Tulips and textiles

City of revolt and opportunity, AD 1800 (Islamic calendar 1215) onwards. O love! Young love! ; Massacre ; Revolution ; Tsargrad ; Scutari ; One-way traffic ; A sick man in the Rose Garden ; Gallipoli : the end of an empire ; The red apple ; The catastrophe ; The last caliph ; Global futures

Coda.