Review “King has combed out the threads of this complex and highly nuanced story in a hugely enjoyable, magnificently researched and deeply absorbing book.” - Jason Goodwin, New York Times Book Review“Superb―deliciously dense with detail and sheer narrative force as Charles King tells the twentieth-century history of the Near East through the prism of one great city. A sepia-toned classic!” - Robert D. Kaplan, author of The Revenge of Geography and Eastward to Tartary“Popular history at its best, authoritative and hugely entertaining. Few places were as colorful as Istanbul between the wars and Professor King captures all the chaotic brio and contradictions of a city, and a culture, reinventing itself.” - Joseph Kanon, author of Istanbul Passage“In this memorably distilled history, Charles King tells us just what the Pera Palace was―the ornately decaying hotel crouched at the center of a mare’s nest of intrigue, violence, sex, and espionage, all set against the slow dimming of Ottoman magnificence. I loved this book.” - Simon Winchester, author of Krakatoa and The Map that Changed the World“This social history of one of the world’s most fascinating cities is as illuminating as it is entertaining. Characters from Trotsky to Hemingway, from a blind Armenian musician to a future pope, help tell the story of how Istanbul transformed itself from a refugee-clogged backwater into a vibrant metropolis. Midnight at the Pera Palace is a true Turkish delight.” - Stephen Kinzer, author of Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds and Reset“A diverse cast, ranging from Muslim beauty queens and Georgian royalty to Leon Trotsky, have left their mark on Istanbul, and King nimbly weaves their threads with enough color to draw in general readers and enough detail to satisfy specialists.” - Publishers Weekly“Elegant… multiple biographies unfold against the backdrop of an old city’s growing pains.” - Kate Tuttle, Boston Globe“An engaging, detailed look at the old city that became the newest of them all.” - Melissa Davis, Seattle Times“Fascinating and perceptive.” - Randy Dotinga, Christian Science Monitor Read more About the Author Charles King is a professor of international affairs and government at Georgetown University. A frequent media commentator on global issues, he is the author of Gods of the Upper Air, Odessa, Midnight in the Pera Palace, and other books. He lives in Washington, DC. Read more
P**R
Can one give an Oscar to a book?
Having lived in Turkey for extended periods and having stayed at the Pera Palace more than once, I approached the book without much thought about discovering anything new. I was wrong. This is a brilliantly written account of the conversion of the Ottoman Empire into the modern republic of Turkey using the hotel as a touchstone illustration for the changes that came about. At the time it was built - when the first railway line reached Istanbul in the mid 1800s - there were many more Greeks, Europeans, Armenians, and others in Istanbul than there were actual Turks. The Empire ruled by the millet (now usually translated "state") system by which each ethnic group administered justice to its own "people," and they in turn felt no shared national identity with each other or with the Turks (a term then applied mostly to Anatolian peasants). By the time you reach the last page, you have a clear idea of the growth of the nation, the role of Turkey (and Istanbul in particular) as a haven for those fleeing their own countries (most of a chapter on Trotsky's refuge in the Princes' Islands), and later as an escape route for East European Jews fleeing Nazi extermination programs. (The later Pope Paul XXIII's role as Papal legate had a big role here.) All in all, one of the most informative and gripping books I've read in years!
H**R
thoroughly-researched
i'm giving this five stars because it is a text that's been constructed carefully, powered by a great deal of research. but i can't go without mentioning the author's tacit bias. there is an insidious (maybe completely unconscious, on the author's part, i don't know!) sort of belittlement...these judgements passed on muslims, on the turks...what i would consider to be hurtful acts of microaggression. as a turkish american reader, each snide word-choice stung me. i felt it all. there were moments i had to take a break, to physically take a break, put the book down, to try and let go of the hurt.another reviewer, downthread, explains it like so: "If you already think the Turks are murderous, lecherous, drunken Islamo-fascists, then you will love this book...(the author) writes about the Turks destroying their beautiful things, killing each other, being afraid of minorities, and not practicing 'real' Islam...He sounds like an old southern man talking about African Americans in a place where African Americans are the majority but he's rooting for the couple thousand people of any other race who happen to be there."five stars for the research, the writing. zero for the lack of heart, balance...for the strangely bigoted *white-man-racist* take on istanbul and the turkish people.
W**Y
Istanbul's Grand Hotel
An engrossing, anecdote-filled account of events that occurred primarily in Istanbul in the period immediately after WWI and through WWII. I became fascinated by the Ottoman Empire due to Jason Goodwin's highly readable "Lords of the Horizons" and this book fills in the story of the demise of that empire and the building of what has become the Republic of Turkey.King centers his stories around the legendary Pera Palace Hotel, perhaps best known through Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express." There are parallels between the fortunes of that famed hotel and the conditions prevailing in Istanbul in the period covered in this volume. Turkish revolutionaries, Allied generals, ambassadors and spies of all nations crisscrossed the lobby and rooms of the Pera Palace.For those curious about what happened to the "sick man of Europe," and how the Allies subdivided the Ottoman Empire's former territories in the Near East, this is a good place to start---and subsequently ponder the consequences.
N**T
Highly recommended. Truly excellent history. Fun read.
A phenomenally interesting book about Istanbul, a hotel and Turkey during the formation of the Turkish Republic.This book looked interesting, and you don't have to be a Turkophile to find this history fascinating. The book is so well-written, the flow of the narrative is wonderful and the stories are just so engrossing. Absolutely, a wonderful exposition of the end of World War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the beginning of the modern Turkish Republic. Having seen the movie The Water Diviner (amongst some others), the period is really wonderfully evoked by this author.Highly recommended.
K**I
It's not about the Turks.
If you already think the Turks are murderous, lecherous, drunken Islamo-fascists, then you will love this book! It is chock full of facts about the Armenian holocaust, the White Russian immigration, and most other minorities who live in Istanbul. What it does not have is information about the actual Turks. King dislikes Mustafa Kumal Attaturk and most of the half-dozen other Turks he bothers to mention. If you want to read a book about a glamorous hotel then you should also skip this one since the Pera Palace seems to spend most of its existence as a run-down bordello according to King. (A quick Google search reveals that it's quite a nice place.)To be honest, the author comes off as pretty bigoted. He writes about the Turks destroying their beautiful things, killing each other, being afraid of minorities, and not practicing "real" Islam. There are three pages about the Hagia Sophia, all about how some gay American man named Whittemore advocated for the plaster that covered the old Christian tesserae to be chipped away. And of course, (he says) the Turks, not being civilized enough to appreciate the Hagia Sophia, eventually complied in the name of revolution. He sounds like an old southern man talking about African Americans in a place where African Americans are the majority but he's rooting for the couple thousand people of any other race who happen to be there. Or maybe like reading about New York city by an author who hates everyone who happens to be Protestant? This book is a bizarre cultural artefact.
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