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 They loved photography, and many of the two hundred unpublished photographs in this book come from dynastic collections.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.