Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Politics & government

MIDNIGHT AT THE PERA PALACE

Charles King

Istanbul and the Age of Exile

In Midnight at the Pera Palace distinguished historian Charles King reveals the forgotten history of Istanbul between the world wars, when the ancient city became a vibrant melting pot of dropouts, dissidents, and visionaries.

Between 1920 and 1940, Turkey transformed from the crumbling Ottoman empire into a new, often conflicted secular republic. During the era of political, cultural, and ethnic upheaval, the old Ottoman capital of Istanbul became an island of castaways from Europe’s cataclysmic twentieth century, filled with ruined businessmen, itinerant artists, deposed royals, defeated revolutionaries, and unwanted minorities. King resurrects this lost world, a nation of crowded boulevards and jazz bands, of “Miss Istanbul” contests and communist agitators, animated by Agatha Christie, Allen Dulles, and Leon Trotsky, among so many others. This sweeping portrait illustrates a nation struggling to shape its own way of being Muslim and modern at the same time. Charles King is a professor of international affairs and government at Georgetown and the author of Odessa, among other titles about Eastern European history, culture, and politics.

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Book Published 2014-09-01 by W.W. Norton

Comments

Popular history at its best, authoritative and hugely entertaining. Few places were as colorful as Istanbul between the wars and King captures all the chaotic brio and contradictions of a city, and a culture, re-inventing itself.

Superb – deliciously dense with detail and sheer narrative force as Charles King tells the 20th century history of the Near East through the prism of one great city. A sepia-toned classic!

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.

When I first stayed at the Pera Palas Hotel in 1971, it was clear there was something strange and wonderful about the old place. In this memorably distilled history, Charles King tells us just what it 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.