Midnight at the Pera Palace
The Birth of Modern Istanbul
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Midnight at the Pera Palace
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Narrated by:
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Grover Gardner
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By:
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Charles King
About this listen
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.
With 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.
©2014 Charles King (P)2014 Blackstone Audio, Inc.What listeners say about Midnight at the Pera Palace
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 21-04-2018
a very interesting experience
I was searching for a book that would follow on from The Ghost Empire by Richard Fidler . This book was the perfect choice. The author deals with tbe dismantling of the Ottoman Empire The rise of Mustafa Kamal later to be known as Ataturk who dragged Turkey into modernity, Many other interestinb historical facts are dealt with such as Turkeys neutrality during WW2 Turkeys stance on the jewish people who were trying to es ape Nazi persecution, Many human i terest stories are interwoven throughout the main facts, I found this to be a very interesting read,
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Deirdre E Siegel
- 26-09-2022
🤭
Brilliant look at Istanbul, it’s notable inhabitants, visitors and life over time. Definitely found this book an enlighteningly humorous look at a moment time, in a beautiful country of architecture and faith. Great listen thank you Charles King, much appreciated :-)
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