Sex, Violence, Espionage and Drama in Istanbul

In the 1920s at the Pera Palace, Istanbul's most luxurious hotel, so many spies hung out in the lobby that the manager posted a sign asking them to give their seats to paying guests. Charles King tells the story of how Istanbul stepped into the modern world and reshaped the meaning of cosmopolitanism. Istanbul was home to generations of Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Muslims, and it welcomed White Russian nobles, Bolshevik assassins, British diplomats, and American entrepreneurs. In Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul, King recalls how it became a true multicultural city.

Men sacrifice rams to inaugurate a new trolley car on the Taksim-Tunel line in Istanbul, 1930s, from Midnight at the Pera Palace by Charles King, published by W. W. Norton, 2014.

(Yapi Kredi Bank Selahattin Giz Collection/Courtesy of the publisher)