Alex

This social history of Istanbul from 1914 to 1950 is unusually well-written and well-structured. The author does an excellent job of zooming down into individual lives which exemplify trends in the period, while also zooming out to paint a broader picture of Turkey and the region in the throes of two world wars and the creation of the Turkish state. King has a flair for epigram and, unlike other books in this genre, actually does manage to make the Pera Palace -- the hotel at the center of the book -- an organizing principle of the narrative. I came to this book as someone who knew nothing about the topic, and found it very informative and rewarding, so I'd definitely recommend it to others, even non-academic readers. I suspect even experts will not be able to find much to complain about in this well-done, deeply-researched, and accessible text.

On the one hand, this is a dry, highly-technical textbook which is sixty years out of date. On the other hand, the prose is hard because it is so concise, and there is a lot in here which remains true today. I was most interested in this book because of the way it reflects Sahlins's thought during a transitional point in his life. It is good -- but only if you are really interested in this genre. So you should almost definitely not read it.