The introduction to this book is dazzling... The Venetian community in Constantinople provides an excellent site for exploration of issues of nation and identity... [Dursteler's] overall intention-to demonstrate cultural diversity in a place and era that has been commonly assumed to lack it-remains firmly at the fore, and he admirably fulfills his task.
James S. Grubb American Historical Review 2007 This is a boundary-busting book... Dursteler is to be commended for this insightful and gracefully-written work that delivers a powerful message in brief compass, and will help change the way we consider European-Ottoman relations in the early modern era, and perhaps West and non-West relations in our own.
Margaret L. King Renaissance Quarterly 2007 A subtle and successful book. Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance 2007 A significant contribution to new understandings of national, ethnic, and religious relations in the past, with clear explanations of common assumptions and frameworks for fluid identities and border-crossings.
Uzi Baram Renaissance Studies 2008 A rich body of interesting and colorful information... An important contribution to our understanding of the complex Mediterranean world of the early modern period.
David Jacoby Sixteenth Century Journal 2007 This book is a very important study, which gives invaluable insights into the cosmopolitan culture and the human condition in early modern Ottoman Constantinople, a growing metropolis in the Mediterranean during a time of enormous change. And most important, Dursteler's findings invite one to think that perhaps the Ottoman Empire in the early modern era owed its existence and magnificence more to this cosmopolitan Mediterranean world than to the sheer conquering power of its Turkish-speaking Muslim ruling house.
Ebru Turan H-Turk, H-Net Reviews 2010