Winner of a National Jewish Book Award



"Fascinating.…A humane and tragic survey of a great and tragic subject." —Jan Morris, Literary Review

From Alexander Pushkin and Isaac Babel to Zionist renegade Vladimir Jabotinsky and filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, an astonishing cast of geniuses helped shape Odessa, a legendary haven of cosmopolitan freedom on the Black Sea. Drawing on a wealth of original sources and offering the first detailed account of the destruction of the city's Jewish community during the Second World War, Charles King's Odessa is both history and elegy—a vivid chronicle of a multicultural city and its remarkable resilience over the past two centuries.

Charles King is a professor of international affairs and government at Georgetown University. A frequent media commentator on global issues, he is the author of Gods of the Upper Air, Odessa, Midnight in the Pera Palace, and other books. He lives in Washington, DC.

Categories

• History / Russia & the Former Soviet Union
• History / Europe / Eastern
• History / Jewish

Product Details

ISBN: 9780393342369
ISBN-10: 0393342360
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Publication Date: August 13th, 2012
Pages: 336
Language: English

King skillfully separates myth from fact.…His writing is aesthetic without superficiality, and erudite without pretension. Reading [his] book is like traveling as your best self, the self that you never quite are, ready with every reference, worldly and wise.
— Timothy Snyder - Wilson Quarterly

[A] finely written and evocative portrait.…A worthy tribute to one of Europe’s greatest and least-known cities.
— The Economist

Eloquent and engaging.
— Michael Schwirtz - Moment

Engaging and highly enjoyable…King brings a travel writer’s gift for clear prose and keen observation to history.
— Matthew Kaminsky - The Daily Beast

Rich and riveting, complex and compelling, powerful and poetic.
— Peter M. Gionatti - Newsday