I haven't been to Istanbul

And it sounds like a place worth a visit!

One of the papers I have been reading lately is "Coffeehouses - Rethinking the Public and Private in Early Modern Istanbul" by Selma Akyazico Özkocak.

It looks at how the coffeehouse has become a key part of social interraction and the development of the coffeehouse as an alternate public space - often for discussion and dissent.

As in Britain, coffee houses in Turkey were considered to be somewhat on the shady side.

This disreputable aspect of the coffee house seems to be somewhat of a common theme - and no doubt an image encouraged by the authorities who might rather that people not visit places.

Why? Well if people are meeting peacefully to discuss the events of the day it is entirely possible (if not probable) that discussion will become criticism of state policy.

Cafes and Coffeehouses have been hotbeds of unrest in Paris, London, Istanbul, Washington and many other places. Parisian cafes were the meeting places for conspirators in more than one revolt, and in Turkey coffeehouses played a role both in the rebellion that created the modern Turkish state and in the final resistance to those efforts.

What the author noted that struck me as notable was that coffee houses in Istanbul served as a a meeting place for several layers of society - a common ground which is exactly what happened in London and Paris.

What is it about coffee that it acts as a leveller between people who drink it but leaves the huge financial and social imbalance between the grower and the drinker?



For those interested, the article I was reading was: Coffeehouses - Rethinking the Public and Private in Early Modern Istanbul
JOURNAL OF URBAN HISTORY, Vol. 33 No. 6, September 2007 965-986