Levant: Splendour and Catastophe on the Mediterranean
Author(s): Philip Mansel
Levant is a book of cities. It describes Smyrna, Alexandria and Beirut when they were windows on the world, escapes from nationality and tradition, centres of wealth, pleasure and freedom. Smyrna, Alexandria and Beirut challenge stereotypes. They were both cosmopolitan cities and centres of nationalism. Using unpublished family papers, Philip Mansel describes their colourful, contradictory history, from the beginning of the French alliance with the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century to their decline in the mid twentieth century. Smyrna was burnt; Alexandria Egyptianised; Beirut lacerated by civil war.
General Information
- :
- : John Murray
- : John Murray
- : 0.79
- : 01 November 2010
- : United Kingdom
- : 01 December 2010
- : 01 September 2012
- : books
Other Specifications
- : Philip Mansel
- : Hardback
- : 12-Oct
- : 956
- : 480
- : Illustrations, maps
More About The Product
Praise for Constantinople: City of the World's Desire -- - 'An endless treasure chest of fascinating facts and extraordinary revelations ... a cultural and social history as much as a political and military one, Mansel's oustandingly researched portrait of this intriguing city and its exotic denizens is gripping' -- Robert Carver, Scotsman 'Marvellous ... the experience of the whole city grows with the book ... you always feel close to the beat of Constantinople's raffish and mysterious heart' -- Michael Ratcliffe, Observer 'The victory, the defeat, the magnificene, the squalor, the cruelty and the tolerance of the Ottoman years are all recorded there. Constantinople is one of those cities to which I always long to return, and the longing grows on every page' -- Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph
Philip Mansel is a historian of France and the Ottoman Empire. He has written histories of Constantinople and nineteenth-century Paris, as well as biographies of Louis XVIII and the Prince de Ligne. Six of his books have been translated into French. He writes for the Art Newspaper, the Times Literary Supplement and The Spectator. While writing Levant, he lived in Beirut and Istanbul.
