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Jason Godwin is a historian, journalist and travel writer. He has travelled extensively in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and India; his first book, The Gunpowder Gardens: Travels through India and China in search of Tea, was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Travel Book Awards, 1991, and his second, On Foot to the Golden Horn: A Walk to Istanbul, was the winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, 1993. He lives in the country with his wife and two sons.
This 'history' of the Ottoman Empire looks at a polyglot empire of 36 nations without a common language; Islamic in religion but Byzantine in its ceremony; Persian in its dignity; Arabic in its calligraphy; and governed by a parvenu class of Balkan renegades. Part history, part travel book, part romantic vision of a lost world, this book, in which anecdote, speculation and chronology become inextricably mixed, has its own peculiar charm. (Kirkus UK)
