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At midnight, December 31, 1925, citizens of the newly proclaimed Turkish Republic celebrated the New Year. For the first time ever, they had agreed to use a nationally unified calendar and clock.Yet in Istanbul--an ancient crossroads and Turkey's largest city--people were looking toward an uncertain future. Never purely Turkish, Istanbul was home to generations of Greeks, Armenians, and Jews, as well as Muslims. It welcomed White Russian nobles ousted by the Russian Revolution, Bolshevik assassins on the trail of the exiled Leon Trotsky, German professors, British diplomats, and American entrepreneurs--a multicultural panoply of performers and poets, do-gooders and ne'er-do-wells. During the Second World War, thousands of Jews fleeing occupied Europe found passage through Istanbul, some with the help of the future Pope John XXIII. At the Pera Palace, Istanbul's most luxurious hotel, so many spies mingled in the lobby that the manager posted a sign asking them to relinquish their seats to paying guests.In beguiling prose and rich character portraits, Charles King brings to life a remarkable era when a storied city stumbled into the modern world and reshaped the meaning of cosmopolitanism.… (more)
User reviews
A surprise to me is how strong King is on the Turkish and Istanbullus persecution of minorities. A key theme through the book is the destruction of multi-cultural life in favour of a wholly fabricated ideal of Turkey and being Turkish - both really unknown before the break-up of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Republic after the First World War. A lot of space is devoted to the shabby treatment of Jews before and during the Second World War. It is interesting to see how the enforcement of a secular society in Turkey was also used to force a purely Islamic religiosity on the people, with many laws and regulations aimed at driving non-Islamic and non-Turkish (that is, Armenian, Greek, Jewish and Christian) populations, many of whom had lived and worshipped in Istanbul for generations, out of society and ultimately out of the country. There is no doubt from this book that Istanbul has become less diverse and less culturally rich as a result.
My only criticisms are that the many photographs are reproduced poorly and that there are insufficient maps to help readers less familiar with Istanbul than they might be with other major cities.
King's work is richly detailed in the time period between the end of the 19th Century and the middle of the 20th, with focus not just on Istanbul but on the Ottoman Empire/Turkey in general as well. The stories told are incredibly
Overall, King offers what may be the last word on the rise of modern Istanbul. He's gifted as a historian in his ability to blend an attention to detail with an interesting storyline, making even the most ignorant of readers able to follow along with the extreme changes facing Istanbul before and after World War I. A must read for anyone interested in WW1, the Ottoman Empire, or Turkish history in general.
Was I entertained by this book; yes. Is it faultless; no. In an essentially picaresque tale the book does have a somewhat meandering quality at time. Still, if you're looking for an introduction into the rise of Modern Turkey you could do a lot worse then picking this book to start your education.