Philip Mansel

The first full biography of the great Sun King of France for twenty years and winner of the Franco-British Society Book Prize. Louis XIV dominated his age. He extended France's frontiers into the Netherlands and Germany, and established colonies overseas. The stupendous palace he built at Versailles became the envy of monarchs all over Europe. In his palaces, Louis encouraged...

Levant is a book of cities. It describes Smyrna, Alexandria, and Beirut when they were windows on the world, escapes from nationality and tradition, centres of wealth, pleasure, and freedom. Using unpublished family papers, Philip Mansel describes their colourful, contradictory history, from the beginning of the French alliance with the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century to their decline in...