John Freely

John Freely (b. 1926) is an American physicist, teacher, and author of popular travel and history books on Istanbul, Turkey, Greece and the Ottoman Empire.

Freely was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up there and in Ireland. He joined the U.S. Navy at age 17 for the last two years of World War II serving with a commando unit in Burma and China. Since 1960 he has taught physics and the history of science at Bosphorus University (formerly Robert College) in Istanbul, with sojourns in New York, Boston, London, Athens, and Venice. He returned to Bosphorus University in 1993. He is the author of over 40 books.

Works

Travel guides:

• Strolling Through Istanbul: A Guide to the City (1972; 4th ed. 1987), with Hilary Sumner-Boyd
• Complete Guide to Greece (1974), with Maureen Freely, Littlehampton Book Services Ltd
• Naxos: Ariadne's Isle (1976; 2nd ed., 1980), Lycabettus Press
• Blue Guide Boston and Cambridge (1984; 2nd ed., 1994), A & C Black Publishers Ltd
• Blue Guide Istanbul (1983; 2nd ed., 1987; 3rd, 1991; 4th, 1997; 5th, 2000)
• The Companion Guide to Turkey (1984; 2nd ed., 1996), Boydell Press
• Crete (1988), Weidenfeld & Nicolson; (New ed., 1989). New Amsterdam Books
• Classical Turkey (1990; Series: Architectural Guides for Travellers), Viking
• Strolling Through Athens: Fourteen Unforgettable Walks through Europe's Oldest City (1991), Penguin; 2nd ed. (2004), Tauris Parke Paperbacks
• The Eastern Mediterranean Coast of Turkey (1999), Milet Publishing Ltd
• Strolling through Venice: The Definitive Walking Guidebook to 'La Serenissima' (1994, 2nd ed., 2008)
• The Redhouse Guide to the Black Sea Coast of Turkey (1996); Photographs by Anthony E. Baker, Redhouse Press
• The Redhouse Guide to the Aegean Coast of Turkey (1996), Redhouse Press
• Crete: Discovering the 'Great Island' (1998); Weidenfield & Nicolson; 2nd ed. (2008), Tauris Parke Paperbacks
• The Redhouse Guide to Western Interior of Turkey (1999), Cadogan Guides
• The Bosphorus (1999), Milet Publishing Ltd
• The Western Shores of Turkey: Discovering the Aegean and Mediterranean Coasts
• Turkey Around Marmara (1999), Cadogan Guides
• The Companion Guide to Istanbul and around the Marmara (2000), Companion Guides
• Galata: A Guide to Istanbul's Old Genoese Quarter Archaeology & Art Pubs (2000)
• The Greek Islands (2003), John Murray Publishers Ltd
• The Companion Guide to Southern Turkey (2003), Companion Guides
• The Princes' Isles: A Guide (2005), Islander Editions/Adali Yayinlari
• The Cyclades: Discovering the Greek Islands of the Aegean (2006); I B Tauris & Co Ltd
• The Ionian Islands: Corfu, Cephalonia and Beyond (2008), I B Tauris & Co Ltd

History and science books:

• Stamboul Sketches (1974)
• Istanbul: The Imperial City (1996)
• A History of Robert College: The American College for Girls and Bogazici University (2000), YKY,Two volumes
• Sinan: Architect of Suleyman the Magnificent and the Ottoman Golden Age (1992), with Augusto Romano Burelli, Thames & Hudson Ltd
• The Emergence of Modern Science, East and West (2004), Istanbul: Bogazici University
• Byzantine Monuments of Istanbul (2004), with Ahmet S. Çakmak; Cambridge University Press
• Children of Achilles: The Greeks in Asia Minor Since the Days of Troy (2009); I B Tauris & Co Ltd
• Jem Sultan: The Adventures of a Captive Turkish Prince in Renaissance Europe (2004); Harpercollins
• John Freely's Istanbul (2003, ill. ed. 2006), Scala Publishers
• Storm on Horseback: The Seljuk Warriors of Turkey (2008); I B Tauris & Co Ltd
• The Grand Turk: Sultan Mehmet II-Conqueror of Constantinople and Master of an Empire (2009)
• Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World (2009)
• Inside the Seraglio: Private Lives of the Sultans in Istanbul (1999)
• The Lost Messiah: In Search of the Mystical Rabbi Sabbatai Sevi (2001)

Wrote forward:

• Runciman Steven, The Lost Capital of Byzantium: The History of Mistra and the Peloponnese
• Stafford-Deitsch, Jeremy, Kingdoms of Ruin: The Art and Architectural Splendours of Ancient Turkey
• Cleave, John (200?), Istanbul: City of Two Continents