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

Mark Mazower goes into extreme detail describing the inhabitants of Salonika with the exception of ethnic Macedonians. I can't say he is not unbiased. Good book, but only a slight mention of the Macedonian struggle is mentioned.

Fantastic historical (ancient Fantastic non-fiction novel about the history (ancient and modern) of a beautiful city - Thessaloniki!

very good, liked how it talked about the whole balkans. in the end you got the impression that the christians werent perfect and made some of the same mistakes as the turks/ottomans. but stood for some good ones like anti multiculturalsim and other things.

Very interesting the way the book portrays the cities religious and ethnic layout throughout time: a mainly Christian population, an Islamic government and an economy and market run by Jews

Only if you are really earnestly interested in the presentation of the history of Macedonia during the past two centuries or so you might need to read this book by Mark Mazower. That necessity is based on two presumptions: 1. You need illustrations of twisted, biased presentation of the life, people and events 2. You need a "big name" to vivisect (Mazower is a history professor in the...more

Only if you are really earnestly interested in the presentation of the history of Macedonia during the past two centuries or so you might need to read this book by Mark Mazower. That necessity is based on two presumptions: 1. You need illustrations of twisted, biased presentation of the life, people and events 2. You need a "big name" to vivisect (Mazower is a history professor in the US) Otherwise - there is not much that you didn't know but odds and pieces gathered when Mazower was a backpacking around Salonika. I have a full, lengthy review about this piece of crap here: http://grozdan.blogspot.com/2006/01/mark-mazower-presents-distorted-biased.html   hide

great book

Very interesting book. I actually couldn't put it down! Very interesting.

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of the Balkans, esp to my fellow Bulgaria PCVs. There was a surprising amount of Bulgarian history in here, and it was really interesting to read about historical events from a non-Bulgarian perspective.

I read this is Athens: too heavy to carry around!That's for being an historian. Wished i had read it while i was teaching in Salonica...what a city!