Odessa

'Scouted by a Spanish-Irish mercenary, named by a randy Russian empress, governed by her one-eyed secret husband, built by a French nobleman on the lam, modernized by a cuckolded Cambridge-educated count, and celebrated by his wife's Russian-African lover,' Odessa exemplifies the buoyancy of urban spaces and the ways in which the messy interaction of ethnic groups, classes, religions, and political persuasions is part of the very meaning of city life. Yet this diversity - the very source of Odessa's spirit and creative genius - would be its downfall, as one imperial outsider after another (Russians, Nazis, Soviets) sought to purify and 'civilize' this rowdy city. From its origins on the route of Greek traders in antiquity through the pogroms of World War II, and to the country's present status as the independent Ukraine's 'second city,' Odessa paints a portrait of this fascinating port city through the stories of some of its most prominent inhabitants - including the French adventurer Armand de Richelieu, the model for Byron's Don Juan; the Russian national poet Alexander Pushkin; the Countess Vorontsova, the inspiration for one of Russian literature's greatest love stories; the writer Isaac Babel; and the controversial Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky. In chronicling Odessa's history, defined by the tension between rival ideologies (nationalism, anti-Semitism, Communism) and a resilient localism and cosmopolitanism, Charles King uncovers the story, in miniature, of Europe.