Storm on Horseback: The Seljuk Warriors of Turkey

by John Freely

Storm on Horseback is both a dramatic history and, uniquely, a traveller’s guide to the extraordinary heritage of the Seljuks in Turkey. Who are the Turks and where did they come from? The successive empires that they created in a whirlwind of conquests from China to North Africa led one chronicler to call the waves of mounted Turkic warriors a ""storm on horseback."" This is the story of the Seljuk Turks of Anatolia who created the first Turkish state. The Seljuk period--when Anatolia, which had been for the most part Greek and Christian and became predominantly Turkic and Muslim--was one of the great cultural transformations in Middle Eastern history. Here, John Freely takes the reader from Istanbul throughout eastern Anatolia, describing the surpassingly beautiful monuments with which the Seljuks adorned their cities, as well as the music, dance, prose and poetry of the period. Though the Seljuks themselves did not survive as rulers, their cultural heritage lives on in the deepest roots of Turkish life, just as their magnificent monuments still adorn the landscape of Turkey.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

304 pages, Hardcover

First published August 30, 2008

About the author

John Freely was born in 1926 in Brooklyn, New York to Irish immigrant parents, and spent half of his early childhood in Ireland. He dropped out of high school when he was 17 to join the U. S. Navy, serving for two years, including combat duty with a commando unit in the Pacific, India, Burma and China during the last year of World War II. After the war, he went to college on the G. I. Bill and eventually received a Ph.D. in physics from New York University, followed by a year of post-doctoral study at Oxford in the history of science. He worked as a research physicist for nine years, including five years at Princeton University. In 1960 he went to İstanbul to teach physics at the Robert College, now the Boğaziçi University, and taught there until 1976. He then went on to teach and write in Athens (1976-79), Boston (1979-87), London (1987-88), İstanbul (1988-91) and Venice (1991-93). In 1993 he returned to Boğaziçi University, where he taught a course on the history of science. His first book, co-authored by the late Hilary Sumner-Boyd, was Strolling Through İstanbul (1972). Since then he has published more than forty books.

Reviews

[A. Sacit · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very readable and concise history of the Seljuks of Rum and other Türkmens who made their incursions into the Asia Minor (or Anatolia: land of the rising sun in Greek, the domain of the Byzantine Empire at the time) starting in the early 11th century. The book is devoid of any footnotes or tedious details, but a fairly comprehensive list of references are provided at the end. Notwithstanding a few glaring errors in the text, the author produced an informative historical chronicle (Part-I) and travel guide (Part-II), which should appeal to the layman. In Part-I, a brief account of the Türkmen Beyliks (principalities) and beginnings of the Ottoman Empire are also given, following the end of the Sultanate of Seljuks as a fully independent entity after their defeat at Kösedağ by the Mongols in 1243.

The theory of strict adherence to Gaza (war for the religion) by the Seljuks and Türkmens, which was advocated by some early historians, have been debunked for some time even though their incursions and wars were directed primarily to the Christian domains, with the decorum of Gaza ideology when it was convenient. The Seljuks of Rum and other nomadic Türkmens in Anatolia, in addition to their formidable horsemanship and fighting skills, come through in the book as pragmatic and often shrewd political operators, interacting and forming alliances and intermarriages with the Byzantines and other Christians depending on their interests and circumstances, often arguing and fighting among themselves, even sometimes together with their Christian allies against their Muslim brethren. During their nearly 250 years of history in Anatolia, Seljuks took the brunt of four separate Crusader campaigns by Europeans to the holy lands, and prevailed. Some passages given from the Byzantine chroniclers and travelers of the time are quite interesting, reflecting the moods and impressions of the people at that time.

Reading the political history of the Seljuks of Rum and Türkmens in Part-I, one gets the impression that they would not have any time left to build any civic works from fighting their wars. In Part-II the author produced a visitors’ guide, explaining that Seljuks and Türkmen Beyliks adorned their domains with mosques, caravanserais, castles, palaces, bridges, and so on, some architecturally sumptuous and well preserved.

[Omar Taufik · Rating 4 out of 5]

The objective of this book was to give the reader a decent picture of Seljuk Anatolia, I believe the author managed just that covering both main historical incidents and landmarks.
The first part of the book was the historical timeline of the subject starting with arrival of the Turks at Anatolia during the eleventh century with one of my favorite chapters " Out of Asia " then with the gradual rise then prime peak and then fall and collapse of the Anatolian Seljuk state especially after the mongol attacks, ending the book's first part with a chapter on the various Türkmen Beyliks and a chapter on the rise of the Osmanli.
This part was full of battles and alliances between different ethnic and religious groups involving Greeks, Latins, Armenians, Turkmens, Mongols, Mamluk Turks and others where the struggle for power actually transcends the unity of race or religion reaching actual war between brothers of the same family sometimes ..
The second part was an interesting trip the author takes us through Anatolia starting West from Istanbul to the far Eastern borders of Anatolia displaying the major monuments in each of the towns visited pertaining to the Seljuk era as well as the Türkmen Beyliks and early Ottoman period.
I consider this book as a very informative book where the author invested a good deal of effort in including this huge amount of information and details where it might me a bit tough in reading sometimes with the heavy load of names and information.
A very good recommendation for readers interested in the subject.

[Erdem Karaadam]

A nice popular history book which summarizes anatolia/ middle east 1000-1400 AD period. Consists of two parts, first Anatolian Seljuk history, second a traveller's guide. I belive the author took a lot of time in writing the two, as there are contradictions between the parts. If and when you find there are new things you have not read before in this book, you will have no reference of it.

[Pinar G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heryerde Ulu Camii var Selcuklular'dan kalma. Kitap Freely'den okudugum en ilerlemeyen kitap oldu. Ki ben tarih kitaplarini cok severim.

[Azeem Ali]

Great book, what I found to be of particular interest was the cases of inter-marriage between Greeks and Turks in Anatolia