No aspect of Kemal Atatürk's life has gone unexplored. None at all, except for the period in Thessaloniki, the city where he was born and raised. The years in Thessaloniki have been overlooked not only by Turks but also by Greek scholars.

The fearful subconscious of nations almost always prevails over even the wisest historical compromises of politics. Even if these compromises between Greece and Turkey bear the stamp of a Venizelos and an Atatürk.

Ottoman Thessaloniki was a phenomenon city, more dynamic in actions and influences than Istanbul. Consequently, it literally emerged as the nurturer of Kemal's reformist visions.

The city where the most creative Jews and Greeks of the Ottoman Empire thrived infused Kemal with the spirit of revolution and modernization. Christos Christodoulou's book explores the parallel course of Thessaloniki and its infamous son during the years of the decline of the Sultan's absolutism and theocracy, and suggests the correspondence of that period with the current events – and the figures – of the Turkish political scene.