- Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (31 Aug 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140270566
- ISBN-13: 978-0140270563
- Product Dimensions: 20 x 12.9 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,043,067 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
John Freely has written dozens of books about Turkey and Istanbul, and is certainly well qualified to provide an account of the goings-on inside the seraglios of the old Ottoman emperors. His earlier Istanbul: The Imperial City is a fascinating guide to the splendours of the city, and Inside the Seraglio is a fitting pendant to that book. Scores of sumptuous illustrations, along with extensive selections from contemporary sources, give a rich sense of the "House of Felicity", the Topkapi Sarayi, in which generations of emperors indulged themselves. As the Court Poet to Ahmet III (The Tulip King) put it: "let us laugh, let us play, let us enjoy the delights of the world to the full."
This is a sensual and often beautiful study that paints a vivid portrait of Oriental living. But there is a problem--it is now nearly 20 years since Edward Said wrote Orientalism, his devastating attack on the Western tendency to see the East as a repository of sensual indulgence and weak-minded decadence. This is not, as Said says the East, this is a biased version of the East, but it is this version that the reader is likely to take away from Freely (who doesn't mention Said in his bibliography). Read these two books side by side for an interesting sense of the dialogue about contemporary representations of the Orient. --Adam Roberts --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
This volume takes us behind the doors of Topkapi Sarayi and the other palaces of the Ottoman sultans who for more than six centuries ruled one of the world's most powerful empires. The heart of the palace was the Harem, the women's quarters, ruled by the Valide, or Queen Mother. Here the Sultan took his ease surrounded by his wives and concubines with their guardian black eunuchs, amused by his favourite pages, dwarfs and mutes, his younger brothers either slaughtered upon his accession or confined to the prison of the Cage. Earlier sultans like Mehmet the Conqueror and Suleyman the Magnificent lied in Topkapi Sarayi only between their campaigns of conquest, but their weak and dissolute successors such as Selim the Sot and Ibrahim the Mad spent their reigns entirely in the Harem, where some of them died of over-indulgence or were brutally murdered. such were the private lives of the |Ottoman sultans in the pleasure dome known as the House of Felicity. Described here with attention to every extraordinary detail and wit, and illustrated throughout with images of this sequestered court, is the history and life of this remarkable palace in all its colour and opulence, and the story of its influence on a great empire.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I generally enjoyed reading the book. However it did not touch very much on the reasons why the sultans kept marrying or taking on non-Turkish women into their harems. I also thought that there should have been more information on the daily lives of the women, the kind of food served, what happened to thecourtiers and the servants after the dissolutions of the harems, etc.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book makes pleasant reading and provides the tourist in Istanbul with some interesting historical background covering the 15th-early 20th centuries, but the narrative is too linear and includes very few analyses of why things were happening that way at any particular time. Moreover, the title is misleading since the descriptions of life in the Topkapi Sarayi tend to be skimped especially for the earlier centuries. The book will thus fail to satisfy the general reader seeking lively information about palace life in Istanbul. At the same time the historical account will fail to meet the serious scholar's quest for an in-depth account of the historical process.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
John Freely certainly loves his subject: his description of Istanbul and its glorious architecture is sensitive and touching. However, his book ultimately fails in its objective: it is neither an in-depth history of the Seraglio, the Harem where the Sultan's wives lived, nor is it a good description of the "private lives of the sultans", as the subtitle of the book promises.
Throughout, the author seems undecided on whether he should follow themes, or just pursue a chronological narrative. The result is a mixture of both, and this remains unsatisfactory. John Freely's habit of applying the same format to the description of every sultan - how many years he spent in the "Cage", hidden away while he awaited his turn at succcession to the throne, how many children he fathered and where he is burried - makes absolutely no sense and is utterly tedious.
Those interested in a bit of "thrill" about sexual dalliances will get nothing from this book. And those interested in a serious, "personal" history of the Osmanli dynasty which ruled the Turkish empire will not be satisfied either.
Throughout, the author seems undecided on whether he should follow themes, or just pursue a chronological narrative. The result is a mixture of both, and this remains unsatisfactory. John Freely's habit of applying the same format to the description of every sultan - how many years he spent in the "Cage", hidden away while he awaited his turn at succcession to the throne, how many children he fathered and where he is burried - makes absolutely no sense and is utterly tedious.
Those interested in a bit of "thrill" about sexual dalliances will get nothing from this book. And those interested in a serious, "personal" history of the Osmanli dynasty which ruled the Turkish empire will not be satisfied either.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Europe
- Books > History > Ancient History & Civilisation
- Books > History > Countries & Regions > Asia > Middle East > Turkey
- Books > History > Europe
- Books > History > World History
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
