Midnight at the Pera Palace - The Birth of Modern Istanbul - Hardcover

Charles King

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393089142 ISBN 13: 9780393089141

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2014

Synopsis

Intrigue, violence, sex, and espionage, all set against the slow dimmingof Ottoman magnificence. I loved this book.Simon Winchester

About this title

Review:

"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"

Mr King has found a winning formula for depicting the micro- and macro-history of one of the world smost seductive places." - --The Economist

"succeeds brilliantly in portraying the eclipsed city and its often exotic cast of the destitute, the dispossessed and the defiant." - --Sunday Telegraph

"[a] lively and intelligent book" --The Times

From the Author:

Charles King is Professor of International Affairs and Government at Georgetown University and former Chairman of the Faculty of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He is the author of Extreme Politics: Natonalism, Violence, and the End of Eastern Europe (Oxford University Press, 2010), The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus (Oxford University Press, 2008), The Black Sea: A History (Oxford University Press, 2004), and The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture (Hoover Institution Press, 2000), as well as articles and essays in Foreign Affairs, The Times Literary Supplement, and leading academic journals. He lectures widely on eastern Europe, social violence, and ethnic politics, and has worked with broadcast media including CNN, National Public Radio, the BBC, the History Channel, and MTV. A native of the Ozark hill country, King studied history and politics at the University of Arkansas and Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0393089142
• ISBN 13: 9780393089141
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 480