John Reid: Turkey and the Turks,Being the present State of the Ottoman Empire.London 1840 First edition, in 8vo,contemporary green cloth,spine faded and restored,text clean with very few scattered spotting, complete 310p.,6 engravings and two maps, overall in very good condition. Reid arrived in Constantinople just as the Tanzimat era was beginning in the 1830s. This was the Sultan's attempt to Westernize the empire to prevent its collapse. Reid's book is vital because it documents the gap between the laws being passed by the government and the reality in the streets. As a medical man, Reid was highly critical of the sanitary conditions in Constantinople. He provides a gritty description of the plague, the filthy state of the bazaars, and the lack of scientific medicine among the population.The available doctors were all Greeks or other Europeans, he offers a satirical and often cynical look at the European community in Pera, accusing many of being adventurers and charlatans taking advantage of the Sultan’s desire for Western expertise. Reid engages in the 19th-century habit of national character sketches. He compares the Turks, Greeks, and Armenians, often using the blunt, prejudiced language typical of a British traveler of that era, yet his observations of daily life are incredibly detailed. Reid was a skeptic who did not believe the Ottoman Empire could be truly reformed and predicted its eventual fragmentation.A very rare account