Aleppo: The Rise and Fall of Syria's Great Merchant City
Every time gardens welcomed us, we said to them, Aleppo is our aim and you are merely the route.'                                                                                            Al-Mutanabbi   Aleppo lies in ruins. Its streets are plunged in darkness, most of its population has fled. But this was once a vibrant world city, where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived and traded together in peace. Few places are as ancient and diverse as Aleppo – one of the oldest, continuously inhabited cities in the world – successively ruled by the Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Arab, Ottoman and French empires. Under the Ottomans, it became the empire's third largest city, after Constantinople and Cairo. It owed its wealth to its position at the end of the Silk Road, at a crossroads of world trade, where merchants from Venice, Isfahan and Agra gathered in the largest suq in the Middle East. Throughout the region, it was famous for its food and its music.  For 400 years British and French consuls and merchants lived in Aleppo; many of their accounts are used here for the first time. In the first history of Aleppo in English, Dr Philip Mansel vividly describes its decline from a pinnacle of cultural and economic power, a poignant testament to a city shattered by Syria's civil war.
1123402094
Aleppo: The Rise and Fall of Syria's Great Merchant City
Every time gardens welcomed us, we said to them, Aleppo is our aim and you are merely the route.'                                                                                            Al-Mutanabbi   Aleppo lies in ruins. Its streets are plunged in darkness, most of its population has fled. But this was once a vibrant world city, where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived and traded together in peace. Few places are as ancient and diverse as Aleppo – one of the oldest, continuously inhabited cities in the world – successively ruled by the Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Arab, Ottoman and French empires. Under the Ottomans, it became the empire's third largest city, after Constantinople and Cairo. It owed its wealth to its position at the end of the Silk Road, at a crossroads of world trade, where merchants from Venice, Isfahan and Agra gathered in the largest suq in the Middle East. Throughout the region, it was famous for its food and its music.  For 400 years British and French consuls and merchants lived in Aleppo; many of their accounts are used here for the first time. In the first history of Aleppo in English, Dr Philip Mansel vividly describes its decline from a pinnacle of cultural and economic power, a poignant testament to a city shattered by Syria's civil war.
22.49 In Stock
Aleppo: The Rise and Fall of Syria's Great Merchant City

Aleppo: The Rise and Fall of Syria's Great Merchant City

by Philip Mansel
Aleppo: The Rise and Fall of Syria's Great Merchant City

Aleppo: The Rise and Fall of Syria's Great Merchant City

by Philip Mansel

eBook

$22.49  $27.50 Save 18% Current price is $22.49, Original price is $27.5. You Save 18%.

Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
WANT A NOOK?  Explore Now

Related collections and offers


Overview

Every time gardens welcomed us, we said to them, Aleppo is our aim and you are merely the route.'                                                                                            Al-Mutanabbi   Aleppo lies in ruins. Its streets are plunged in darkness, most of its population has fled. But this was once a vibrant world city, where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived and traded together in peace. Few places are as ancient and diverse as Aleppo – one of the oldest, continuously inhabited cities in the world – successively ruled by the Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Arab, Ottoman and French empires. Under the Ottomans, it became the empire's third largest city, after Constantinople and Cairo. It owed its wealth to its position at the end of the Silk Road, at a crossroads of world trade, where merchants from Venice, Isfahan and Agra gathered in the largest suq in the Middle East. Throughout the region, it was famous for its food and its music.  For 400 years British and French consuls and merchants lived in Aleppo; many of their accounts are used here for the first time. In the first history of Aleppo in English, Dr Philip Mansel vividly describes its decline from a pinnacle of cultural and economic power, a poignant testament to a city shattered by Syria's civil war.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780857729248
Publisher: I.B.Tauris
Publication date: 02/28/2016
Series: 20151021
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 272
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

Philip Mansel is a historian of France and the Middle East. He has lived in Paris, Beirut and Istanbul, and often visited Aleppo. In 2012 he won the London Library Life in Literature Award, and in 2013 became a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. His most recent publication is The Eagle in Splendour: Inside the Court of Napoleon (2015). Aleppo: The Rise and Fall of Syria’s Great Merchant City is his third book on cosmopolitan cities of the Middle East, after Constantinople: City of the World's Desire (1995), on Istanbul, and Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean (2010), on Smyrna, Alexandria and Beirut.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xi

Acknowledgements xiii

Introduction 1

Part I A History

1 The Ottoman City 7

2 Emporium of the Orient World 11

3 Consuls and Travellers 15

4 Entertainments 23

5 Muslims, Christians, Jews 26

6 Catholics against Orthodox 32

7 Janissaries against Ashraf 34

8 Ottoman Renaissance 39

9 The French Mandate 47

10 Independence 52

11 Years of the Assads 58

12 Death of a City 61

Part II Through Travellers' Eyes

13 A Collection of Curious Travels and Voyages containing Dr. Leonhart Rauwolff's Itinerary into the Eastern Countries (1693) Leonhard Rauwolff 69

14 The Six Voyages of Jean-Baptiste Tavernier … through Turkey into Persia and the East Indies (1678) Jean-Baptisce Tavernier 85

15 The Natural History of Aleppo (1756) Alexander Russell 92

16 A Journal from Calcutta in Bengal, by Sea, to Busserah: from thence across the Great Desart to Aleppo: and from thence to Marseilles, and through France to England. In the Year 1750 (1757) Bartholomew Plaisted 121

17 Voyages and Travels of a Sea Officer (1792) Francis Vernon 124

18 Travels in Africa, Egypt and Syria from the Year 1792 to 1798 (1799) William George Browne 127

19 Travels in Syria and the Holy Land (1822) John Lewis Burckhardt 133

20 Travels among the Arab Tribes inhabiting the Countries East of Syria and Palestine (1825) James Silk Buckingham 143

21 Narrative of a Tour through Some Parts of the Turkish Empire (1829) John Fuller 154

22 The Ansaryii (or Assassins), with Travels in the Further East in 1850-51 (1851) Lt. the Hon. Frederick Walpole R.N. 158

23 The Lands of the Saracen; or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily and Spain (1854) Bayard Taylor 169

24 Personal Narrative in Letters; Principally from Turkey, in the Years 1830-33 (1856) Francis William Newman 176

25 Through Turkish Arabia: A Journey from the Mediterranean to Bombay by the Euphrates and Tigris Valleys and the Persian Gulf (1894) Henry Swainson Cowper 186

26 Syria: The Desert and the Sown (1907) and Amurath to Amurath (1911) Gertrude Bell 199

27 Dead Towns and Living Men (1920) Leonard Woolley 215

Notes 219

Bibliography 233

Index 241

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews