Philip Mansel

Aleppo lies in ruins. Its streets are plunged in darkness and most of its population has fled. But this was once a vibrant world city, where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived and traded together in peace.

Aleppo is one of the oldest, continuously inhabited cities in the world, successively ruled by the Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Arab, Ottoman and French empires. Under the Ottomans, it became the Empire's 3rd largest city, after Constantinople and Cairo.

It owed its wealth to its position at the end of the Silk Road, at a crossroads of world trade, where merchants from Venice, Isfahan and Agra gathered in the largest souk in the Middle East. Throughout the region, it was famous for its food and its music.

For 400 years British and French consuls and merchants lived in Aleppo and many of their accounts are used here for the first time. Mansel ‘s account is the first history of Aleppo in English.

Dr Philip Mansel, is described as ‘our greatest authority on the civilization of the Levant’, by William Dalrymple. He has published 11 books of history and has written for the Spectator, The Telegraph and The Independent