Philosophy was the new God, but there were efforts in some circles to divert men's minds from the philosophical sects and restore a sort of unorthodox faith in the old religion. Against this artificial revival of mythological faith, Lucian pitted the influence of his tremendous satirical powers. In the "Dialogues of the Gods," he pulls the curtain aside-exposing the Gods as they engage in private disputes, domestic brawls, and love affairs, with their jealousies and scandals, their paltry strifes and petty motives. The lesson is simple: Can one worship beings with such weaknesses, such foibles, and such scandalous and immoral lives? This new translation by Baudelaire Jones breathes fresh life into ancient deities such as Zeus, Hera, Hermes, Aphrodite, Poseidon, and Athena, revealing complex, contradictory, sex-obsessed creatures that modern mortals can surely relate to.

    The fire, which destroyed not only a beautiful and ancient city but also a multicultural way of life that had blossomed there over centuries, occurred at the end of the war of independence led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk against the occupying European countries. Th e story takes place in the period between World War I and the great fire.The Levantines in Turkey are a cultural minority of European ancestry mixed with local Greek, Turkish and Armenian heritage. Centuries ago, during the glory days of the Ottoman Empire, they settled in the major cities and ports of the empire. Many families had Genoese or Venetian backgrounds and were involved in commerce and trade. In Izmir (Smyrna) Levantines were polyglots who functioned with ease in Turkish, Greek, French, Italian and English and were essential to the cultural and economic fabric of the city, contributing to its distinct identity.Evocative of time and place, and beautifully told, The Ghosts of Smyrna is a novel that deals with love, war and loss, and tragedies that are universal to human existence.

    While at high school, he started working at Zafer Magazine's editorial office in Istanbul and discovered his love of literature and books. Since then he has gone on to become the editor of Zafer Publications Group and continually writes. He is married with two children.

    Highlighting over three hundred works from the collections of the holy monasteries of Sinai and Mount Athos, the Treasury of Saint Mark’s in Venice, and museums and institutions across the globe, this landmark publication—which accompanies a spectacular exhibition—explores the artistic identity of this turbulent empire and its influence on European and Islamic traditions.

    Kaligian integrates internal documents of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, and existing research on the last years of the empire, as well as the archives of the British, American, and German diplomatic corps. By reducing the overemphasis on central government policies and by describing unofficial contacts, political relations, and provincial administration and conditions, Kaligian provides a unified account of this key period in Ottoman history.Kaligian sets out to resolve many of the conflicting conclusions in the current historiography--including the most central issue, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation relations with the Turkish Committee of Union and Progress. It is impossible to obtain a true picture of Armeno-Turkish relations without an accurate analysis of their two leading parties. This study finds that the ARF was torn between maintaining relations with a CUP that had failed to implement promised reforms and was doing little to prevent increasing attacks on the Armenian population, or break off relations thus ending any realistic chance for the constitutional system to succeed. The party continued to stake its reputation and resources on the success of constitutional government even after the trauma of the 1909 Adana massacres. The decisive issue was the failure of land reform.This book sets the record straight in terms of understanding Armeno-Turkish relations during this short but pivotal period. Kaligian's study, the first of its kind, shows that the party's internal deliberations support the conclusion that it did remain loyal and contradicts the view that the party's only aim was to incite a rebellion against Ottoman rule. The author has done an excellent job of leading the reader through this rich history, using primary source information to bridge the gaps from theory, to analysis, to evidence.