SALONICA, CITY OF GHOSTS: Christians, Muslims And Jews, 1430-1950 by Mark Mazower (HarperCollins, £25): CITIES have long served as melting pots of humanity - especially when they straddle the divides of different cultures.

One of the more fascinating and yet less-well documented of these is Salonica in Greece, which has a unique place in history.

Through the ages, it has seen the advent of Christianity and Byzantine rule, followed by conquest at the hands of the Muslims. Governed by the tolerant Ottoman Empire, this city on the edge of Europe became a magnet for Jews kicked out of Portugal and Spain in 1492. Three cultures co-existed peacefully for nearly 400 years, bar the occasional outburst of violence, but the city could not escape the inevitable tides of history and when the Greeks took over it was completely transformed with the exodus of the Turks and the destruction of any trace of their tenure: even inscriptions on gravestones were chiselled off.

The great fire of 1917 razed the heart of the city and the Nazis' so-called Final Solution saw the demise of the Jews, who had been in the majority for the longest.

Today, nothing of the city's mystical charm remains and its graceful buildings have been replaced by modern architecture. Yet the ghosts of inhabitants past will always linger. This meticulously researched account of the city fleshes out its many personalities - great and small - and breathes a new life into the past.

Published: 19/10/2004