Charles King is Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University, Washington DC, and the author of numerous books, including most recently the New York Times bestseller The Reinvention of Humanity, which won The Francis Parkman Prize for Biography and was shortlisted for the British Academy Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His other books include Midnight at the Pera Palace: The Birth of Modern Istanbul and Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams, winner of a National Jewish Book Award. His writing has appeared in the TLS, New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, The New Republic and other publications.