Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950The history of a rarely written about, bewilderingly exotic city: 500 years of clashing cultures and peoples, from the glories of Suleiman the Magnificent to its nadir under Nazi occupation. Salonica is the point where the wonders and horrors of the Orient and Europe have met over the centuries. Written with a Pepysian sense of the texture of daily life in the city through the ages, and with breathtakingly detailed historical research, Salonica will evoke the sights, smells, habits, songs and responses of a unique city and its inhabitants. The history of Salonica is one of forgotten alternatives and wrong choices, of identities assumed and discarded. For centuries Muslims, Christians, and Jews have succeeded each other in ascendancy, each people intent on erasing the presence of their predecessors, and the result is a city of cultural traditions and memories of extreme violence and genocide, one that sits on the overlapping hinterlands of both Europe and the East. |
From inside the book
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Page 21
5 first time we have a name - by - name census of its inhabitants – one in ten Christians there were named after him . " Like the other major early Christian shrines – the massive , low - sunk Panayia Acheiropoietos ( the Virgin's ...
5 first time we have a name - by - name census of its inhabitants – one in ten Christians there were named after him . " Like the other major early Christian shrines – the massive , low - sunk Panayia Acheiropoietos ( the Virgin's ...
Page 32
Murad's initial thought was ' to return the city to its inhabitants and to restore it just as it had been before . Anagnostes tells us that he would have liberated all the captives had not one of his senior commanders prevented him .
Murad's initial thought was ' to return the city to its inhabitants and to restore it just as it had been before . Anagnostes tells us that he would have liberated all the captives had not one of his senior commanders prevented him .
Page 49
As wave after wave of Iberian refugees arrived at the docks , the city grew by leaps and bounds . By 1520 , more than half its thirty thousand inhabitants were Jewish , and it had turned into one of the most important ports of the ...
As wave after wave of Iberian refugees arrived at the docks , the city grew by leaps and bounds . By 1520 , more than half its thirty thousand inhabitants were Jewish , and it had turned into one of the most important ports of the ...
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LibraryThing Review
User Review - vguy - LibraryThingThe perfect book to read on first visit to 'thessaloniki. Unfolds the many layers of this extraordinary "border town", and how the complexity got shaved away over the course of the 20th century by ... Read full review
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User Review - TrgLlyLibrarian - LibraryThingI learned a lot from this book, and I admire Mazower's ability to form such a complete account of Salonica. Read full review
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