With its varied and glorious history, Istanbul remains one of the world’s perennially fascinating cities. Richard Tillinghast, who first visited Istanbul in the early 1960s and has watched it transfor
Damascus was Rafik Schami's home for twenty-five years before he sought exile in Europe, and this "Pearl of the Orient" is still the city he loves more than any other. Thirty years later, and now a pr
Togo Heihachiro (1848–1934) was born into a feudal society that had withdrawn into seclusion for 250 years. As a teenage samurai, he witnessed the destruction wrought upon his native land by British w
The Italian premier Vittorio Orlando came to Paris as one of the "Big Four," yet in April 1919 he walked out in one of the most dramatic crises of the Peace Conferences. Orlando’s failure to satisfy h
This is the first collection of parallel biographies of two key Yugoslav politicians of the early twentieth century: Nikola Pa?ic, a Serb, and Ante Trumbic, a Croat. It also offers a brief history of
The end of the First World War and the collapse of the Russian Empire offered momentary self-government to many of Russia's border natinalities. The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania wer
When Patricia Clough, a former foreign correspondent, bought a house in Umbria, she knew that buying her dream home did not mean that life would become a dream. By the end of this book, in which she d
Joy Melville’s major biography of the Russian impresario brings to life a brief and daring age of sophisticated and hedonistic pleasure set against the backdrop of a swiftly changing world. In Paris a
The legend of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel—the “Desert Fox”—is threefold: he was a simple soldier who did his duty and knew nothing about Nazism; he was a commander of superlative talent who ran rings a
This book follows Fredrich Ebert's rise to national prominence in the pre-war Social Democratic Party, his role in the First World War, and his short tenure as the first president of the Weimar Repub
David Lloyd George (1863-1945). The end of the First World War saw Britain at the height of its power. Its fleet and air force were the largest in the world. Its armies had triumphed in the Middle Eas
Paul Hymans was the champion of the small states in the League of Nations Commission at the Paris Peace Conference and was rewarded by being named the League’s first president. He thereby brought abou
The Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos (1864-1936) was one of the stars of the Paris Peace Conference, impressing many of the Western delegates, already possessed of a romantic view of 'the gr
Poland's sovereignty as an independent state was secured at the Paris Conference by Ignacy Paderewski, an acquaintance of Woodrow Wilson. He was later blamed for being excessively confident that the G
This book, available for the first time in English, is an exhilarating journey through Turkey’s history and a perceptive look at the interactions between secularism, religion, and multiethnicity.Witho
This omnibus edition brings together Nicholas Woodsworth’s critically acclaimed Mediterranean trilogy into a single volume for the first time, allowing readers to fully appreciate the scope of Woodswo
The story of the Indian soldiery in the Great War needs new telling, and one important chapter in its history features the Maharajah of Bikaner. Dashing, autocratic, and a formidable public speaker, G
Brazil was one of the emerging world powers to be invited to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. Having jettisoned her empire just thirty years before, the Portuguese-speaking nation was showing signs
“Will someone pay for the spilled blood? No. Nobody.” When Mikhail Bulgakov composed this dark and prophetic phrase in Kiev amid the turmoil of the Russian civil war, the political trouble
