Books by Charles King
Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul
by Charles King
Midnight at the Pera Palace is a nonfiction book by Charles King, Professor of International Affairs and Government at Georgetown University. It's about one of the most fascinating cities in the world, Istanbul, still known officially as Constantinople in the period the book covers. The Pera Palace is the hotel where many foreigners stayed, but also Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. The book is about the tumultuous period when the Ottoman Empire came to an end and the Turkish Republic was declared. It's an unlikely book to have a Netflix series based on it, and the series bears little relation to the book, except the title and the focus on the hotel, which you can still stay at today.
“If you wanted to understand why anthropology matters you couldn’t get a better book. He’s both gifted and careful….The person who actually knows stuff but doesn’t bore you to death. And that’s not as easy to find as you would like.” Read more...
The best books on Global Cultural Understanding: the 2020 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize
Patrick Wright, Historian
Interviews where books by Charles King were recommended
-
1
Imperial Intimacies: A Tale of Two Islands
by Hazel Carby -
2
Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent
by Priyamavada Gopal -
3
Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power
by Pekka Hämäläinen -
4
Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century
by Charles King -
5
All Our Relations: Indigenous Trauma in the Shadow of Colonialism
by Tanya Talaga
The best books on Global Cultural Understanding: the 2020 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize, recommended by Patrick Wright
The best books on Global Cultural Understanding: the 2020 Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize, recommended by Patrick Wright
Every year the British Academy's Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize is awarded to the best nonfiction book that has contributed to 'global cultural understanding.' This year, the legacies of colonization and empire loom large. Patrick Wright, Emeritus Professor at King's College London and chair of this year's panel of judges, talks us through the books shortlisted for the £25,000 prize.
-
1
Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century
by Charles King -
2
The Queen: The Forgotten Life Behind an American Myth
by Josh Levin -
3
L.E.L.: The Lost Life and Scandalous Death of Letitia Elizabeth Landon, the Celebrated "Female Byron"
by Lucasta Miller -
4
Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century
by George Packer -
5
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
by Sonia Purcell
The Best of Biography: the 2020 NBCC Shortlist, recommended by Elizabeth Taylor
The Best of Biography: the 2020 NBCC Shortlist, recommended by Elizabeth Taylor
How do you find the perfect subject for a biography? “Pick a real bitch, or real bastard, and make sure they're dead,” a famous biographer once told Elizabeth Taylor. The author, critic and chair of the National Book Critics' Circle biography committee talks us through the books that made their 2020 shortlist.
