The Lion House
The Coming of a King
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
“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, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
Narrated through the eyes of the intimates of Suleyman the Magnificent, the sixteenth-century sultan of the Ottoman Empire, The Lion House animates with stunning immediacy the fears and stratagems of those brought into orbit around him: the Greek slave who becomes his Grand Vizier, the Venetian jewel dealer who acts as his go-between, the Russian consort who becomes his most beloved wife.
Within a decade and a half, Suleyman held dominion over twenty-five million souls, from Baghdad to the walls of Vienna, and with the help of his brilliant pirate commander, Barbarossa, placed more Christians than ever before or since under Muslim rule. And yet the real drama takes place in close-up: in small rooms and whispered conversations, behind the curtain of power, where the sultan sleeps head-to-toe with his best friend and eats from wooden spoons with his baby boy.
In The Lion House, Christopher de Bellaigue tells the story not just of rival superpowers in an existential duel, nor of one of the most consequential lives in human history, but of what it means to live in a time when a few men get to decide the fate of the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian and journalist de Bellaigue (Rebel Land) delivers an intricate and evocative account of 16th-century Ottoman ruler Suleyman I's rise to power. The son of Selim I, who conquered the Mamluk Sultanate in 1517 and declared himself Caliph, or "leader of the world's Muslims," Suleyman survived his father's assassination attempt via poison-dipped robe and became sultan after Selim's death in 1520. De Bellaigue sheds light on the relationship between Suleyman and his intimate friend and adviser, the Grand Vizier Ibrahim, a former Christian slave who made the fatal mistake of "believ himself to be indispensable." Also spotlighted are Suleyman's mother, Hafsa, who stopped him from trying on the poisoned robe, and Hurrem, the shrewd Ruthenian slave and concubine who became his wife. Excerpts from Hurrem's letters provide an intimate look into court life and glimpses of Suleyman's personality, but his motivations and the origins of his willingness to overturn tradition remain somewhat mysterious. Still, de Bellaigue's punchy, present-tense prose and use of imagined dialogue endow the complex power plays and diplomatic intrigues with a sense of immediacy, and though the narrative ends 30 years before Suleyman's death and doesn't include many of his most significant accomplishments, the threat he posed to European dynasties is made clear. This is an incisive portrait of a ruler on the cusp of greatness.
