The Book Prize Index

Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430–1950

Mark Mazower

Salonica, located in northern Greece, was long a fascinating crossroads metropolis of different religions and ethnicities, where Egyptian merchants, Spanish Jews, Orthodox Greeks, Sufi dervishes, and Albanian brigands all rubbed shoulders. Tensions sometimes flared, but tolerance largely prevailed until the twentieth century when the Greek army marched in, Muslims were forced out, and the Nazis deported and killed the Jews. As the acclaimed historian Mark Mazower follows the city’s inhabitants through plague, invasion, famine, and the disastrous twentieth century, he resurrects a fascinating and vanished world.

HistoryWorld History · medium confidenceWorld History81 signalsLlm Classifier: World History -> World HistoryGoogle Books: History -> HistoryAward Category: Duff Cooper Prize: History, Biography & Political Science -> BiographyHousing, Cities & Urban LifeReligion & Religious MovementsAmerican Politics

Award History

1 wins · 2 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Duff Cooper Prize: History, Biography & Political Science2004WinnerSecondary source
PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize: Historical Nonfiction2005ShortlistSecondary source
View all award history (2)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  2. 02 Central places

    • Salonica86%
    Show lower-confidence suggestions

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • northern Greece52%

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

    This suggestion did not meet the normal display threshold and is more likely to be wrong.

    In Salonica, religious and ethnic tensions sometimes flared, but tolerance largely prevailed until the twentieth century, when Greek military action, forced expulsions, and Nazi deportations devastated its Muslim and Jewish communities.

    Model confidence 45%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    44 / 100 academic

    Trade / academic crossover

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 66%.