Sultans in Splendour : Monarchs of the Middle East, 1869-1945

Philip Mansel analyses the delicate balance of power struck between Muslim monarchs and European empires, while he describes the extraordinary way of life inside palaces along the Bosphorus and the Nile. He brings to life Royal Egypt, once a country which in some ways surpassed the elegance and refinement of contemporary Europe. Egypt's King Farouk ascended the throne in 1936; he was the idol of his people and De Gaulle described him as 'prudent, well informed, quick witted'. But by the time he choked to death in a Rome restaurant, he had become an obese debauchee who had lost his friends as well as his throne. Weak or brutal, traditionalists or modernizers, 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 They loved photography, and many of the two hundred unpublished photographs in this book come from dynastic collections.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.