PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Christopher de Bellaigue was born in London in 1971, and was educated at Cambridge University, where he read Iranian and Indian Studies. Between 1995 and 2007, he lived and worked as a journalist in south Asia and the Middle East, writing for The Economist, Guardian and the New York Review of Books. He is the award-winning author of four books and has made several BBC television and radio programmes. He lives in London.
Christopher de Bellaigue has a magic talent for writing history. It is as if we are there as the era of Suleyman the Magnificent unfolds -- ORHAN PAMUK Christopher de Bellaigue has written a brilliant history of big power politics and courtly intrigue. The story of the battle for supremacy between Ottoman and Holy Roman empires reads like a majestic, sweeping historical novel. This is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand political ambition and the role of narcissistic leaders and scheming courtiers - in any age -- ROBERT PESTON Poised effortlessly between two worlds and two ages, as at home in Istanbul as in the chambers of Venice, alert to every nuance of costume and gesture which is the key to imperial power, de Bellaigue brings you into councils and banquets, through sieges and bedrooms in a book as pungent and mysterious as the age it depicts -- RORY STEWART, former British Cabinet Minister and Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, Yale University An eye-opening, well-written and very timely book -- YUVAL NOAH HARARI on The Islamic Enlightenment 'Luminous ... burst[s] with colour and detail ... A dazzling feat of erudition and storytelling' * New Statesman on The Islamic Enlightenment * An important, beautifully written book that offers a powerful corrective * Sunday Times on The Islamic Enlightenment * The best sort of book for our disordered days: timely, urgent and illuminating -- PANKAJ MISHRA on The Islamic Enlightenment
