John Freely (26 June 1926 – 20 April 2017[1]) was an American physicist, teacher, and author of popular travel and history books on Istanbul, Athens, Venice, Turkey, Greece, and the Ottoman Empire. He was the father of writer and Turko-English literary translator Maureen Freely.[2]
In 1947, Freely married Dolores "Toots" Stanley after they had agreed to devote their lives to travel.[3][4] He died in the UK in 2015 and his remains were interred in Feriköy Protestant Cemetery in Istanbul.[5]
Academic careeredit
Freely received his PhD in physics at New York University, and later pursued his postdoctoral studies at Oxford University under Alistair Cameron Crombie, the pioneering researcher in the history of Medieval European science. The principal idea he inherited from Crombie was "the continuity of western European science from the Dark Ages through Copernicus, Galileo and Newton". Following his postdoctoral work, he went in 1960 to Istanbul, Turkey, and took up a post at Robert College (later Boğaziçi (Bosphorus) University). He subsequently taught courses there in physics and the history of science and astronomy, including the course "The Emergence of Modern Science, East and West",[6] with sojourns in New York City, Boston, London, Athens, Oxford, and Venice. He returned to Boğaziçi University in 1993.
Writing lifeedit
Freely was the author of more than 40 books, many of them either histories of Istanbul and Turkey, accounts of the lives of significant figures of the Ottoman Empire or travel guides, especially about Istanbul. Together with Hilary Sumner-Boyd, a colleague from Boğaziçi University, Freely published Strolling Through Istanbul: A Guide to the City in 1972. While sales were initially slow, they picked up as travel to Istanbul increased, and by the early 2000s it was regarded as a classic of the guidebook genre for its blending of the academically rigorous with an accessible, even lively, writing style. It continues in print fifty years after its initial publication.[3]
Among the more unusual topics he wrote about were the lives of Cem Sultan, the third son of Sultan Mehmet II who laid claim to the Ottoman throne but was defeated and ended his life in exile in Europe; and Sabbetai Zevi, the so-called Jewish Messiah from Smyrna (now İzmir), who eventually converted, at least on the surface, to Islam and whose followers became known as the Dönme.
Worksedit
Travel guides:
Strolling Through Istanbul: A Guide to the City (1972; 9th edition 2006), with Hilary Sumner-Boyd; (2009) Tauris Parke Paperbacks
Complete Guide to Greece (1974), with Maureen Freely, Littlehampton Book Services Ltd
John Freely's Istanbul (2003, ill. edition 2006), Scala Publishers
Storm on Horseback: The Seljuk Warriors of Turkey (2008); I B Tauris & Co Ltd
Children of Achilles: The Greeks in Asia Minor Since the Days of Troy (2009); I B Tauris & Co Ltd
The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II: Conqueror of Constantinople and Master of an Empire (2009); Tauris Parke Paperbacks
Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World (2009)
Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (2012)
The Flame of Miletus: The Birth of Science in Ancient Greece (and How it Changed the World) (2012); I B Tauris & Co Ltd
Light from the East: How the Science of Medieval Islam helped to shape the Western World (2010); I B Tauris & Co Ltd
The Art of Exile: A Vagabond Life (2016); I B Tauris & Co Ltd
Wrote foreword:
Runciman, Steven, The Lost Capital of Byzantium: The History of Mistra and the Peloponnese (2009 reprint), Tauris Parke Paperbacks
Stafford-Deitsch, Jeremy, Kingdoms of Ruin: The Art and Architectural Splendours of Ancient Turkey (2009)
Bradford, Ernle, The Sultan's Admiral: Barbarossa - Pirate and Empire-Builder (2009), Tauris Parke Paperbacks
Referencesedit
Wikiquote has quotations related to John Freely.
^"Yazar John Freely yaşamını yitirdi". Cumhuriyet. 20 April 2017. Retrieved 20 April 2017.
^Goodwin, Jason (n.d.). "Enlightenment (book review)". Washington Post Book World. Retrieved 19 July 2009.
^ abcdJohns, Derek (5 June 2017). "John Freely obituary". The Guardian.
^Freely, John (2016). The Art of Exile: A Vagabond's Life (1st ed.). London: I. B. Tauris. pp. 65–6. ISBN 9781784534981.
^Korkmaz, Eren Cenk (12 June 2020). "Some have left behind a name, and some have not – A Brief Guide to Istanbul's Feriköy Protestant Cemetery". Orient-Institut Istanbul. Retrieved 24 October 2022.
^John Freely, Before Galileo: The Birth of Modern Science in Medieval Europe (2012).