In this inviting book, part history and part travelogue, Mazower chronicles the fate of Christians, Jews and Muslims in Salonica through Ottoman rule, Europeanization, and devastations of WWII. At the crossroads of the Aegean in Northern Greece, Thessaloniki (as the city was originally founded and is known today) has been a place of commerce and coexistence since its days as a Byzantine port. Mazower, professor of history at Columbia University, is the author of The Balkans: A Short History. He writes with authority and verve.  (GRE232, $16.95)