The Man Who Created the Middle East: A Story of Empire, Conflict and the Sykes-Picot Agreement

At the age of only 36, Sir Mark Sykes was signatory to the Sykes-Picot agreement, one of the most reviled treaties of modern times. A century later, Christopher Sykes’ lively biography of his grandfather reassesses his life and work, and the political instability and violence in the Middle East attributed to it.
The Sykes–Picot agreement was drawn by the eponymous British and French diplomats in 1916 to determine the divide of the collapsing empire in the event of an allied victory in World War I. Excluding Arab involvement, it negated their earlier guarantee of independence made by the British – and controversy has raged around it ever since. But who was Mark Sykes?
A century on, Christopher Simon Sykes reveals new facets of a misremembered diplomatic giant. Using previously undisclosed family letters and cartoons by his grandfather, he delivers a comprehensive and humbling account of the man behind one of the most impactful policies in the Middle East.

Biographies & Memoirs

Sykes, Christopher Simon

Historical

William Collins

In this fascinating and entertaining second volume, Christopher Simon Sykes explores the life and work of Britain's most popular living artist. David Hockney is one of the most influential and best-loved artists of the twentieth century. His career has spanned and epitomized the art movements of the past five decades. Picking up Hockney's story in 1975, this book finds him flitting between Notting Hill and California, where he took inspiration for the swimming pool series of paintings; creating acclaimed set designs for operas around the world; and embracing emerging technologies—the Polaroid camera and fax machine in the seventies and eighties and, most recently, the iPad. Hockney's boundless energy extends to his personal life too, and this volume illuminates the glamorous circles he moves in, as well as his sometimes turbulent relationships. Christopher Simon Sykes has been granted exclusive and unprecedented access to Hockney's paintings, notebooks, and diaries, and a great number of them are reproduced here. Featuring interviews with family, friends, and Hockney himself, this is a lively and revelatory account of an acclaimed artist and an extraordinary man.

David Hockney: The Biography, 1975-2012

Arts & Photography

Nan A. Talese

A unique oollection of family photographs and a wealth of eccentric ancestors make this book one of the most unusual family histories ever published.

The Visitors' Book: A Family Album

PUTNAM

Scotland's authentic style is revealed here in country houses, traditions and culture, and in images including a tiled Edwardian kitchen at Ardkinglas; a bright, richly decorated ceiling inside a thick-walled Jacobean tower house; a lush garden carpeted with bluebells; and the comfort of well-stuffed furniture in living rooms and libraries. Many of the treasures of Scottish life are also explored, in sections on painted ceilings, romantic painting, Harris Tweed, tartans, pottery, dovecots, trout and salmon fishing, deerstalking and grouse shooting. This welcoming civility is set against the splendours of the landscape, with windswept hills, craggy coastlines and lakes veiled in mist. A directory lists houses and gardens open to the public, as well as island tours, inns, hotels and antique shows - even where to buy armour.

Scottish Country

MacLean, Charles

Photography & Video

Gardners Books

At Home with Art is about art lovers, their passion for art, and their seemingly unquenchable desire to bring home the works that have captured their hearts. Whether the artworks are Picassos or posters, these people want to acquire and live with the art they love. "I wake up in the morning and exercise where I can look at it," says John Robson about one of the paintings in his San Francisco townhouse. How these art lovers integrate their finds into their living spaces, juxtaposing their paintings and sculpture with the artifacts of everyday life -- furniture, rugs, books, lamps, objets d'art -- is vividly illustrated here in more than fifty homes inhabited by people for whom living with art is as essential as breathing. These homes are not mini-museums with art to be admired from a respectful distance. Nor have they been designed by interior decorators whose goal is to harmonize the upholstery with the pictures. Each home has been chosen for its very personal and inspired expression of art and decor, revealing a deep, even spiritual, relationship between the pictures on the walls and the people who place them there. From airy lofts and old farmhouses to sleek city apartments and cozy traditional houses, all are made special by the paintings and sculptures within. A wide variety of people appear in these pages, from the president of MoMA to a young man in love with poster art, to the writer who has artist friends, to the young woman who inherited pieces from her mother, to the actress whose art travels with her wherever she goes. The kinds of art that speak to them and that they are impelled to acquire range from old masters to outsider art, from folk art to contemporary art, to prints, drawings, photographs, and sculpture. We learn about what sparked their interest in a particular genre, how they make their selections, how they meld them into their homes, and what living with their art means to them. Though looking at these interiors proves there are no fixed rules about displaying a work of art, special sections on framing, hanging, lighting, and caring for art, from oil paintings to delicate works on paper, provide technical assistance. A directory includes framers, dealers, auction houses, and restorers in major American cities and in London. Above all, At Home with Art shows that there are all kinds of art to be loved and cherished, however grand or simple, and that living surrounded by art's beauty can bring boundless personal satisfaction.

At Home with Art: How Art Lovers Live with and Care for Their Treasures

Ellis, Estelle

SEEBOHM,Caroline

Collections, Catalogs & Exhibitions

Clarkson/Potter

1982 Chatto & Windus 1st ed.,pub. in England. Bad boys, villains,, cheats, spendthrifts- an entertaining history of rogues who disgraced their families by Christopher Sykes.

Black sheep

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Chatto&Windus

PRIVATE PALACES

RANDOM HOUSE UK

History

Europe

Photographs and descriptions of some of the finest homes in England, selected from family albums by a photographer of British homes, record the lifestyles of a bygone era of wealth and stately grandeur

The National Trust: Country House Album

Architecture

Bulfinch Pr

Following on the great successes of recently published books on the Great Houses of England, of Wales and of Scotland, here in the same lavish format is a book on the manor houses of England. These smaller scale houses, often of more ancient origin than the "great houses," are scattered all around the country, and range from simple Norman halls to picturesque Tudor manor houses and handsome buildings from the reign of the Stuarts. This is domestic architecture, rather than palaces built to impress the visitor with their owners' power and wealth, and as such they are far more closely related to modern life. Not only is this book redolent in history, but it will suggest architectural and decorative ideas to those building a traditional home. While most of the great houses have now been sold by their original owners, most of the manor houses are still privately owned and lived in as a home. His book covers 40 manor houses in all, each one is beautifully illustrated by specially commissioned photographs and accompanied by a lively, readable text that describes the families that created these marvelous houses.

Manor Houses of England

MONTGOMERY-MASSINGBERD, Hugh

Vendome Press

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Books by Sykes, Christopher Simon