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Overview
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: | Bloomsbury Publishing |
| Publication date: | 02/28/2016 |
| Series: | 20151021 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 272 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
Part I A History
1 The Ottoman City 7
2 Emporium of the Orient World 12
3 Consuls and Travellers 17
4 Entertainments 25
5 Muslims, Christians, Jews 28
6 Catholics against Orthodox 34
7 Janissaries against Ashraf 36
8 Ottoman Renaissance 42
9 The French Mandate 50
10 Independence 56
11 Years of the Assads 63
12 Destruction of a City 66
Epilogue 71
Part II Through Travellers' Eyes
13 A Collection of Curious Travels and Voyages containing Dr. Leonhart Rauwolff's Itinerary into the Eastern Countries (1583/1693), Leonhard Rauwolff 77
14 The Six Voyages of Jean-Baptisie Tavernier … through Turkey into Persia and the East Indies (1678) Jean-Baptiste Tavernier 93
15 The Natural History of Aleppo (1756) Alexander Russell 100
16 Voyages and Travels of a Sea Officer (1792) Francis Vernon 129
17 Travels in Africa, Egypt and Syria from the Year 1792 to 1798 (1799) William George Browne 132
18 Travels in Syria and the Holy Land (1822) John Lewis Burckhardt 138
19 Travels among the Arab Tribes inhabiting the Countries East, of Syria and Palestine (1825) James Silk Buckingham 148
20 Narrative of a Tour through Some Parts of the Turkish Empire (1829) John Fuller 159
21 The Ansaryii (or Assassins), with Travels in the Further East in 1850-51 (1851), Lt. the Hon. Frederick Walpole R.N. 163
22 The Lands of the Saracen; or, Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily and Spain (1854) Bayard Taylor 174
23 Personal Narrative in Letters; Principally from Turkey, in the Years 1830-33 (1856) Francis William Newman 181
24 Through Turkish Arabia: A Journey from the Mediterranean to Bombay by the Euphrates and Tigris Valleys and the Persian Gulf (1894) Henry Swainson Cowper 191
25 Syria: The Desert and the Sown (1907) and Amurath to Amurath (1911) Gertrude Bell 203
26 Dead Towns and Living Men (1920) Leonard Woolley 219
Notes 223
Bibliography 239
Index 249
Interviews
Author Interview with Baker & Taylor Publisher Services:
Thank you for joining us. We have to be honest – while your book is an incredible history of the city of Aleppo, it's also one of the most heartbreaking books we've ever read, given what's happened to Aleppo. What was that like, writing on deadline about a world-class treasure being destroyed in front of our eyes?
Philip Mansel: The war made me more determined, as the city was being bombed, to record as well as I could, its people and monuments, to write down people's memories of a more peaceful and tolerant Aleppo. It made the books I read on, for example, the 17th century seem more relevant. I am a believer in the necessity not to succumb to the "vanity of the present," or "the condescension of posterity," not to believe that the 21st century has seen universal improvement. Aleppo is proof it has not.
All of the primary source accounts in Part II of the book detail the physical beauty of the city of Aleppo over the centuries, and the cultural beauty, too. Can you tell us about how you picked these accounts for the book?
Philip Mansel: I wanted to give as wide a range as possible, from Leonhard Rauwolff in the 16th century to Leonard Woolley in the 20th.
We loved how the book details the commerce and the culture of the city over the centuries. There were mostly peaceful times, but there were "cleansing" and "purges," too—but nothing on the level of what's happened in the last decade. What's different this time around?
Philip Mansel: This time you have the crises dividing the entire Muslim world, from Morocco to Malaya—ideological, religious, generational, political, more severe than in the past; the catastrophe of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which helped produce ISIL; interference and funding of insurgents from Gulf states; the immobilism of the Assad regime; and desertification and impoverishment of the countryside: an explosive cocktail.
You've written extensively about the Middle East and the Levant. When was the last time you were in Aleppo? Are you in touch with anyone there?
Philip Mansel: I was last in Aleppo in 2004, for a conference. It appeared peaceful and to be preparing for a tourist boom. Buildings were being restored. The cafes were livelier. I am in touch with friends from Aleppo who are outside it, and hear the latest news through other friends. Always contradictory, depending on the point of view.
What do you think you'll miss the most about Aleppo? Is there any chance the city can come back? Has it before?
Philip Mansel: I will miss the markets, the explosion of sounds and smells and experiences which it contained; the old houses; the mixtures of Christian and Muslim. It came back after the devastations by Hulagu, the mongol conqueror in 1260 and by Timur Lenk in 1400; but this civil war has lasted four years; I wonder if trust between inhabitants and pride in the city will return. I wonder if people who have left the city will want their children to grow up there. The regime has not changed. Syria has bad relations with trading partners in Iraq and Turkey.