Louis XIV was a man in pursuit of glory. Not content to be the ruler of a world power, he wanted the power to rule the world. And, for a time, he came tantalizingly close. Philip Mansel's King of the World is the most comprehensive and up-to-date biography in English of this hypnotic, flawed figure who continues to captivate our attention. This lively work takes Louis outside Versailles and shows the true extent of his global ambitions, with stops in London, Madrid, Constantinople, Bangkok, and beyond. We witness the importance of his alliance with the Spanish crown and his success in securing Spain for his descendants, his enmity with England, and his relations with the rest of Europe, as well as Asia, Africa, and the Americas. We also see the king's effect on the two great global diasporas of Huguenots and Jacobites, and their influence on him as he failed in his brutal attempts to stop Protestants from leaving France. Along the way, we are enveloped in the splendor of Louis's court and the fascinating cast of characters who prostrated and plotted within it. King of the World is exceptionally researched, drawing on international archives and incorporating sources who knew the king intimately, including the newly released correspondence of Louis's second wife, Madame de Maintenon. Mansel's narrative flair is a perfect match for this grand figure, and he brings the Sun King's world to vivid life. This is a global biography of a global king, whose power was extensive but also limited by laws and circumstances, and whose interests and ambitions stretched far beyond his homeland. Through it all, we watch Louis XIV progressively turn from a dazzling, attractive young king to a belligerent reactionary who sets France on the path to 1789. It is a convincing and compelling portrait of a man who, three hundred years after his death, still epitomizes the idea of le grand monarque.

King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV

Biographies & Memoirs

MANSEL, Philip

Historical

University of Chicago Press

Sultans in Splendor

Sultans in Splendour is a spectacular visual record of the end of an empire.'If you want riches go to India. If you want learning, go to Europe. But if you want imperial splendor, come to the Ottoman Empire.' In 1869 the Khedive Ismail of Egypt, an Ottoman vassal, threw a round of glittering parties to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal. Everybody was there: the Empress Eugenie of the French, the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, the Crown Prince Frederick William of Prussia.  Desert chieftains prowled around waltzing Europeans and whirling dervishes, and dancing girls performed for the guests. It was a meeting of East and West which heralded the arrival of the modern age in the Middle East.In 1869 the Ottoman Sultan ruled a powerful multinational empire stretching from the Danube to the Gulf. At its heart lay one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities in the world: Constantinople, the city of the Sultans. By 1945 the Ottoman Sultans, and many other dynasties, had been overthrown, and most of the Middle East had been divided into the states which exist today. The Sultans and Kings had played a crucial part in this transformation, and their extraordinary position - between East and West - produced some memorable monarchs.Weak or brutal, traditionalists or modernisers, the Ottoman Sultans and their rivals were never dull. Nor were they shy. They loved photography, and many of the two hundred unpublished photographs in this book come from dynastic collections. They reveal the way of life of the courts, the magnificence of the costumes and palaces and the forbidden world of the harem, with its eunuchs and Circassian slaves bought for the Sultan's pleasure.

Sultans in splendor

A. Deutsch

Winner of the 
Franco-British Society Book Prize 2019\n'The ultimate biography of the Sun King' Simon Sebag Montefiore\nLouis XIV dominated his age. He extended France's frontiers into Netherlands and Germany, and established colonies overseas. The stupendous palace he built at Versailles became the envy of monarchs all over Europe. In his palaces, Louis encouraged dancing, hunting, music and gambling. He loved conversation, especially with women: the power of women in Louis's life and reign is a particular theme of this book. Louis was obsessed by the details of government but the cost of building palaces and waging continuous wars devastated the country's finances and helped set it on the path to revolution. Nevertheless, by his death, he had helped make his grandson king of Spain, where his descendants still reign, and France had taken essentially the shape it has today.\nKing of the World is the most comprehensive and up-to-date biography of this hypnotic, flawed figure in English. It draws on all the latest research to paint a convincing and compelling portrait of a man who, three hundred years after his death, still epitomises the idea of le grand monarque.

King of the World The Life of Louis XIV (Paperback) /anglais

Arts & Literature

Penguin Uk

Throughout history rulers have used clothes as a form of legitimization and propaganda. While palaces, pictures, and jewels might reflect the choice of a monarch’s predecessors or advisers, clothes reflected the preferences of the monarch himself. Being both personal and visible, the right costume at the right time could transform and define a monarch’s reputation. Many royal leaders have known this, from Louis XIV to Catherine the Great and from Napoleon I to Princess Diana. This intriguing book explores how rulers have sought to control their image through their appearance. Mansel shows how individual styles of dress throw light on the personalities of particular monarchs, on their court system, and on their ambitions. The book looks also at the economics of the costume industry, at patronage, at the etiquette involved in mourning dress, and at the act of dressing itself. Fascinating glimpses into the lives of European monarchs and contemporary potentates reveal the intimate connection between power and the way it is packaged.

Dressed to Rule: Royal and Court Costume from Louis XIV to Elizabeth II

History

Europe

Yale University Press

Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean

Levant is a book of cities. It describes three former centers of great wealth, pleasure, and freedom—Smyrna, Alexandria, and Beirut—cities of the Levant region along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. In these key ports at the crossroads of East and West, against all expectations, cosmopolitanism and nationalism flourished simultaneously. People freely switched identities and languages, released from the prisons of religion and nationality. Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived and worshipped as neighbors.
Distinguished historian Philip Mansel is the first to recount the colorful, contradictory histories of Smyrna, Alexandria, and Beirut in the modern age. He begins in the early days of the French alliance with the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century and continues through the cities' mid-twentieth-century fates: Smyrna burned; Alexandria Egyptianized; Beirut lacerated by civil war.
Mansel looks back to discern what these remarkable Levantine cities were like, how they differed from other cities, why they shone forth as cultural beacons. He also embarks on a quest: to discover whether, as often claimed, these cities were truly cosmopolitan, possessing the elixir of coexistence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews for which the world yearns. Or, below the glittering surface, were they volcanoes waiting to erupt, as the catastrophes of the twentieth century suggest? In the pages of the past, Mansel finds important messages for the fractured world of today.

Historical Study & Educational Resources

Not so long ago, in certain cities on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived and flourished side by side. What can the histories of these cities tell us? Levant is a book of cities. It describes three former centers of great wealth, pleasure, and freedom—Smyrna, Alexandria, and Beirut—cities of the Levant region along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. In these key ports at the crossroads of East and West, against all expectations, cosmopolitanism and nationalism flourished simultaneously. People freely switched identities and languages, released from the prisons of religion and nationality. Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived and worshipped as neighbors.
Distinguished historian Philip Mansel is the first to recount the colorful, contradictory histories of Smyrna, Alexandria, and Beirut in the modern age. He begins in the early days of the French alliance with the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century and continues through the cities' mid-twentieth-century fates: Smyrna burned; Alexandria Egyptianized; Beirut lacerated by civil war.
Mansel looks back to discern what these remarkable Levantine cities were like, how they differed from other cities, why they shone forth as cultural beacons. He also embarks on a quest: to discover whether, as often claimed, these cities were truly cosmopolitan, possessing the elixir of coexistence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews for which the world yearns. Or, below the glittering surface, were they volcanoes waiting to erupt, as the catastrophes of the twentieth century suggest? In the pages of the past, Mansel finds important messages for the fractured world of today.

Throughout history rulers have used dress as a form of legitimisation and propaganda. While palaces, pictures and jewels might reflect the choice of a monarch's predecessors or advisers, clothes reflected the preferences of the monarch himself. Being both personal and visible, the right costume at the right time could transform and define a monarch's reputation. Many royal leaders have used dress as a weapon, from Louis XIV to Catherine the Great, and Napoleon I to Princess Diana. This intriguing book explores how rulers have sought to control their image through their appearance. Mansel shows how individual styles of dress throw light on the personalities of particular monarchs, on their court system, and on their ambitions. He looks also at the economics of the costume industry, at patronage, at the etiquette involved in mourning dress, and at the act of dressing itself. Fascinating glimpses into the lives of European monarchs and contemporary potentates reveal the intimate connection between power and the way it is packaged.

Dressed to Rule: Royal and Court Costume From Louis XIV to Elizabeth II

At once scholarly and entertaining, Constantinople depicts the Ottoman capital as a place of shifting boundaries and categories. It was the capital of both Islam and the Orthodox church, part of the "system of Europe" and a magnet for people and ideas from Paris to Isfahan. It was also a city of critical strategic importance, coveted at different periods by Russia, Germany, Bulgaria, and Greece. After the Great War, in its last years as an imperial capital, Constantinople was occupied by British, French, and Italian forces. Within a broad chronological framework, here is the story of the city and of the impact the Ottoman Sultans and their dynasty had on it; here too are the families who settled in Constantinople and served the Sultans, among them the Turkish Koprulu, the Italian de Testa, the Greek Mavrocordatos and the Hashemites from Mecca. The story begins in 1453 with the triumphant entry into the city of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror on a white horse. It ends with the hurried departure of the last Ottoman ruler, Abdulmecid on the Orient Express. In studying the five hundred years between those two events, the author goes beneath the surface of the bustling, cosmopolitan traveler's Constantinople to record the history of what was at once an imperial capital, a holy city, a trading entrepot, a pleasure resort and, in its cultural and intellectual life, a laboratory of modernization.

Constantinople: City of the World's Desire 1453-1924

Middle East

St Martins Pr

A sweeping history of Constantinople examines the capital city of the Ottoman Empire, examining a broad spectrum of material and primary resources that reveal the influence of several wealthy families who encouraged the expansion of the empire.

Constantinople: City of the World's Desire, 1453-1924

St. Martin's: Griffin

Paris between 1814 and 1852 was the capital of Europe, a city of power and pleasure, a magnet for people of all nationalities that exerted an influence far beyond the reaches of France. Paris was the stage where the great conflicts of the age, between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, revolution and royalism, socialism and capitalism, atheism and Catholicism, were fought out before the audience of Europe. As Prince Metternich said: When Paris sneezes, Europe catches cold. Not since imperial Rome has one city so dominated European life. Paris Between Empires tells the story of this golden age, from the entry of the allies into Paris on March 31, 1814, after the defeat of Napoleon I, to the proclamation of his nephew Louis-Napoleon, as Napoleon III in the Hôtel de Ville on December 2, 1852. During those years, Paris, the seat of a new parliamentary government, was a truly cosmopolitan capital, home to Rossini, Heine, and Princess Lieven, as well as Berlioz, Chateaubriand, and Madame Recamier. Its salons were crowded with artisans and aristocrats from across Europe, attracted by the freedom from the political, social, and sexual restrictions that they endured at home. This was a time, too, of political turbulence and dynastic intrigue, of violence on the streets, and women manipulating men and events from their salons. In describing it Philip Mansel draws on the unpublished letters and diaries of some of the city’s leading figures and of the foreigners who flocked there, among them Lady Holland, two British ambassadors, Lords Stuart de Rothesay and Normanby, and Charles de Flahaut, lover of Napoleon’s step-daughter Queen Hortense. This fascinating book shows that the European ideal was as alive in the nineteenth century as it is today.

Paris Between Empires: Monarchy and Revolution 1814-1852

St.Martin's Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by MANSEL, Philip. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by MANSEL, Philip

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by MANSEL, Philip. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

King of the World: The Life of Louis XIV

Sultans in splendor

King of the World The Life of Louis XIV (Paperback) /anglais

Dressed to Rule: Royal and Court Costume from Louis XIV to Elizabeth II

Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean

Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean

Dressed to Rule: Royal and Court Costume From Louis XIV to Elizabeth II

Constantinople: City of the World's Desire 1453-1924

Constantinople: City of the World's Desire, 1453-1924

Paris Between Empires: Monarchy and Revolution 1814-1852