Lev Myshkin
“The Great Sea” by David Abulafia
David Abulafia, Professor of Mediterranean History at Cambridge University and author of the authoritative biography of Frederick II of the Hohenstaufen, has written a masterly, entertaining and eminently readable human history of the Mediterranean.
“Europe in the Looking Glass”
Robert Byron’s first book written at the age of 21 has just been republished. It has been out of print for over 80 years but fans of “The Road to Oxiana” may have their loyalty sorely tested!
Otto von Bismarck
Jonathan Steinberg has written a gripping account of the life of the Iron Chancellor, a complex and contradictory figure who unified Germany and transformed Europe through the sheer force of his personality and his ability to manipulate Emperor Wilhelm I. The master of Realpolitik was a pugnacious pragmatist, a hypochondriac and much else besides.
Ben Jonson: A Life
The volatile and complex character of Ben Jonson, poet and playwright of comic genius is the subject of an excellent new biography by Ian Donaldson. Friend and rival of Shakespeare, “Rare Ben Jonson”, renowned for his wit and appetite, was the stepson of a bricklayer who became the court poet under Elizabeth I and James I and England’s first literary celebrity.
Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe
Philip Mansel’s “Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe in the Mediterranean” is a remarkable, highly unusual and very readable social history of the ports of Smyrna, Beirut and Alexandria during the final decades of the Ottoman Empire.
Evliya Çelebi: an Ottoman Traveller
Known variously as a Turkish Pepys, a Muslim Montaigne and an Ottoman Herodotus, 17th century traveller, Evliya Çelebi, recounts his adventures in the 10-volume “Seyahatname” (Book of Travels). A new translation has revived interest in this remarkable man.
Jerusalem: The Biography
Simon Sebag Montefiore’s excellent book “Jerusalem: the Biography” is a masterly history of a city that is both “a den of superstition, charlatanism and bigotry” but also the point on earth where heaven and earth meet.
Wicked Company
Philipp Blom’s new book “Wicked Company” recounts the life of Baron d’Holbach’s intellectual salon of free thinkers, the “epicenter of intellectual life in Europe”, in 18th century Paris. His salon was regularly attended by Diderot, Rousseau and a steady stream of eminent visitors from the 1750s right up until the French revolution.
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