I recently came across the fascinating blog Far Outliers: "Exploring migrants, exiles, expatriates, and out-of-the-way peoples, places, and times, mostly in the Asia-Pacific region."
Among its gems, I particularly recommend the series of extracts from Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950, by Mark Mazower (Vintage, 2006), a book I've been intending to read for some time. The extracts are filed here, along with other Balkan material.
8 comments:
Hi Bob
It's a great book - I'd strongly recommend it. I found it a real revelation -very good on the Spanish roots and Ladino culture of the Jewish community in Salonica - and a devastating account of its destruction by the Nazis.
See this post:
http://martininthemargins.blogspot.com/2007/05/history-and-identity-in-jaffa-and.html
Mazower's Dark Continent is also a must-read if you haven't already read it.
This review of a new book that "explores the rich history of Turkey’s Dönme, Sephardic Jews who converted to Islam in the 1600s" is related:
http://www.tabletmag.com/arts-and-culture/books/23393/the-other-secret-jews/
Thanks all. I have read Dark Continent, and thought it was superb. Martin, I loved your post. I've long been fascinated by the Donme, so I'll go and read the Tablet article now. Noga, your ancestors are Salonikan aren't they?
The book is a nice piece of writing although not one of Mazower's best. It still makes a nice read simply because Salonica, as the first modern Jewish city, is simply utterly unknown to the rest of the world.
Abravanel, any reading recommendations for us?
For Salonica and/or Balcans?
As far as storytelling ability goes Mazower is excellent. And he is definitely on the right track, the only problem is that he was in the position to create a monumental book but he simply re-packaged existing stuff.*
* existing for me and he did mix them up wonderfully.
Thanks!
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