Istanbul_ The Collected Traveler_ An Inspired Companion Guide - Barrie Kerper [58]
The Turks Today, by Andrew Mango (Overlook, 2004). The Washington Post Book World said of The Turks Today that “Mango successfully peels modern Turkey to its core.” The observation is dead-on: I think there is not any issue of modern Turkey that Mango shies away from in this excellent book. Mango—who was born in Istanbul into a family of Russian émigrés, speaks Turkish fluently, and worked for forty years at the BBC—is perhaps the man at the right time to write about a country that is not easily summed up. Mango covers events from the death of Atatürk in 1938 up to the current EU membership issue.
Turkish Chapters
Some other good books to read that feature Turkey, or Istanbul, or both in their chapters include:
Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History, by Robert D. Kaplan (St. Martin’s, 1993). Part four, devoted to present-day Greece, features a very good chapter entitled “Farewell to Salonika.”
Destinations, by Jan Morris (Oxford University, 1980). “City of Yok” is the chapter devoted to Istanbul in this collection of previously published Rolling Stone essays.
The Ends of the Earth: A Journey at the Dawn of the 21st Century, by Robert D. Kaplan (Random House, 1996). Part two of this book is entitled “Anatolia and the Caucasus,” and at its beginning, Kaplan is in Istanbul standing on Seraglio Point, which T. S. Eliot referred to as “the still point of the turning world” in Four Quartets.
The Spirit of Mediterranean Places, by Michel Butor (Marlboro, 1986). The first part of this beautiful book is devoted to “Four Cities,” one of which is Istanbul (which Butor refers to as an “Oriental Liverpool”) and another Salonica.
Travels with a Tangerine: From Morocco to Turkey in the Footsteps of Islam’s Greatest Traveler, by Tim Mackintosh-Smith (Random House, 2004). Islam’s Greatest Traveler is Ibn Battutah, who, according to the author, spent half his lifetime on the road and traveled some 75,000 miles.
A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveller, by Frances Mayes (Broadway, 2006). Before a cruise along Turkey’s Lycian Coast, Mayes—renowned author of Under the Tuscan Sun—spends a few days in Istanbul, “the most multinational city, the quintessential crossroads of east and west, violent, poetic, melancholy, raucous, fleshy, austere, rapacious, sublime—this seems to me the most fascinating city on earth.”
Additionally, these volumes on Mediterranean history all include much detail on Turkey and Istanbul:
The Inner Sea: The Mediterranean and Its People, by Robert Fox (Knopf, 1991). A fascinating work of reportage and travelogue by a journalist who is the Mediterranean correspondent for the Daily Telegraph in London.
The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, by Fernand Braudel (HarperCollins, 1992). This (abridged) version of Braudel’s acclaimed two-volume work (originally published in France in 1949) includes illustrations in black-and-white and color that weren’t featured in previous editions.
The Mediterranean in History, edited by David Abulafia (Thames & Hudson, 2003). Profusely illustrated, with essays by an international team of scholars.
The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean, by John Julius Norwich (Doubleday, 2006). Equally as interesting and unparalleled as his works on Byzantium and Venice.
On the Shores of the Mediterranean, by Eric Newby (Picador, 1985). While not as scholarly a tome as those above, Newby’s is always rewarding and enlightening to read.
Guidebooks
It won’t come as a surprise that I routinely consult a great number of guidebooks while I’m planning a trip. I don’t bring all of them with me—I often take extensive notes from some books, especially if they are heavy, and incorporate them into my all-purpose journal (I also