"Death to the Crusade
By TED WIDMER
Published: September 18, 2005
IN a quiet courtyard near Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, patient merchants smoke unfiltered cigarettes and tend their stalls in the Secondhand Book Bazaar, or Sahaflar Carsisi. On this site, once the publishing center of the Ottoman Empire, customers have been buying manuscripts for 500 years, and books since 1732, after Ibrahim Muteferrika, an Ottoman diplomat, set up a printing press in Constantinople. A bust in the courtyard honors him, even though his improvements came over the objections of the scribes and illuminators who dominated the information industry of the day. Their presence is still felt here. I recently picked up an old Ottoman map of North America with antique calligraphy I cannot even begin to decipher."
More:Death to the Crusade - New York Times
