Philip Mansel

Sultans of Bling

Turquerie: An Eighteenth-Century European Fantasy

By

Thames & Hudson 240pp £39.95 order from our bookshop

The alliance between France and the Ottoman Empire lasted for nearly four hundred years, from 1535 to 1914. Despite occasional squalls, it was one of the few fixed points in European politics. It was so enduring that it generated cultural, economic and social benefits, as well as political and military ones. Marseille (where coffee was first drunk in France in 1644) and Provence lived off the Levant trade. By 1900, the Ottoman elite, including Mustafa Kemal and Enver Pasha, knew French and were influenced by the books and ideas of the Third Republic. 

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • The mystery of Jack the Ripper's identity has long been agonised over. But what do we know about his victims?… ,
    • A piece of Literary Review history from way back in 1983: John Haffenden talks to the great Iris Murdoch. ,
    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    • 'The heroic male nude could not, I think, be used today to signify civic pride and glory', as Michelangelo’s 'David… ,
    • 'Munch’s later works show us a man liberated from the torments that gave rise to some of the best-known early works… ,
    Follow Us