Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims, and Jews, 1430-1950

I lived in Thessaloniki as an exchange student in 1980. I wish that this book had bee available for me to realize the historic gems around every corner of my favorite city at that time. Mazower's book opens up the reasons for its (the city's) being and why it was and is so important. People of every religion, or none, will be fascinated by its political turmoil and intrigues, and visitors today can walk the same roads and shop in the same marketplaces as those who went before them, thousands of years ago. I have purchased this book several times and keep giving it away to other Thessalonians and people who love Thessaloniki as much as I.

Mark Mazower breathes life into a place completely swept away by the conflicts of the 20th century. Masterfully written and eminently readable despite its size, Professor Mazower's work provides depth of detail and real context to all the cross-currents of culture and politics at play, of which he clearly has a profound understanding. While he does show a sympathy toward the much-maligned Ottoman Empire, the effort convincingly argues that the commonly held perception of the Empire in the 18th & 19th century as a decrepit, dysfunctional state was not deserved. He brings to life the lost Turkish presence, as complex as it was often ruthless, the once thriving predominantly-Jewish city the Greeks have willfully buried and forgotten and the substantial Slavic component in the surrounding provinces that dated back to their arrival in the 6th century. He handles the volatile period between the tragic dispossession of the local Turks and the arrival of the horribly tormented Greeks of Asia Minor with great sensitivity by focusing instead on the tragedy of individuals instead of faceless masses. The final chapter is devoted to the Nazi annihilation of the Jews and the city's subsequent metamorphosis into a completely Greek metropolis consciously revising its identity in the older Hellenic context. The singular glaring lapse of this work lies in the author's gratuitous swipes at Greek and Jewish national aspirations, as alluded to by another reviewer below. Somehow, Ottoman hegemony and its destruction of the Classical world it usurped trumps the desires of others who followed it (or more accurately, preceded it). The author seems unable to reasonably reconcile this inconsistency.

My background: I was born in Thessaloniki 1961) and leaving the last 25 years in Europe. I found the book excellent in the sense of describing long period of time without prejudices and certain political or historical dogma approach. I missed the part from 1944 to 1949, focusing on civil war events and implications, trials of communists underground and the social dynamics of that era. Very good analysis.

The Mazower book is superb. It makes the city come alive with a careful and thorough review of the city's history. Its ethnic composition was fascinating to explore. His footnotes put me on to two other books which added even more to the story of this intriguing city. He made some of what I have felt on my several visits become clear. Although he writes in a precise chronological manner, he inserts up-to-date observations which make the mosaic of Thessaloniki complete. This is a must for anyone interested in Modern Greece and the Balkans.

500 years of a city in the Balkans makes for an awful lot of history. Salonica (or Thessaloniki as it is known today) is located at one of the crossroads of the world. It is Greek at the moment, but has at times been Turkish. As a crossroads it had strong Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities. It was not without conflict, but they lived together for centuries. Only in fairly modern times were the Muslims forced to leave, and during World War II the Germans rounded up the Jews as part of the final solution (which makes for tragic reading). This is an area far from the mainstream of most modern American history books. Most of our history comes from other areas of the world. So this book opens new areas to study for the first time. It is exhaustively researched and provides an insight into a world, a culture far from our own. For many years, this was considered the orient, where east meets west. A fascinating place, a fascinating read.