TEHRAN – English historian Philip Mansel’s book “Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire, 1453-1924” has been published in Persian.Shahla Tahmasbi is the translator of the book published by Now.Wedding elegant prose with impeccable historical research, this highly acclaimed history absorbingly charts the interaction between the vibrantly cosmopolitan capital of Constantinople — the city of the world’s desire — and its ruling family. In 1453, Mehmed the Conqueror entered Constantinople on a white horse, beginning an Ottoman love affair with the city that lasted until 1924, when the last Caliph hurriedly left on the Orient Express. For almost five centuries Constantinople, with its enormous racial and cultural diversity, was the center of the dramatic and often depraved story of an extraordinary dynasty. This is the definitive history of one of the world’s most exotic and exciting cities.Mansel is a historian of courts and cities, and of France and the Ottoman Empire. He was born in London in 1951 and educated at Eton College, where he was a King’s Scholar, and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Modern History and Modern Languages. Following four years’ research into the French court of the period 1814-1830, he was awarded his doctorate at University College, London in 1978.His first book, “Louis XVIII”, was published in 1981 and this - together with subsequent works such as “The Court of France 1789-1830”, “Paris Between Empires 1814-1852” - established him as an authority on the later French monarchy.

Six of his books have been translated into French.Altogether Mansel has published eleven books of history and biography, mainly relating either to France or the Ottoman Empire and West Asia: “Sultans in Splendour” was published in 1988, “Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire 1453-1924” in 1995 and “Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean” in 2010.Mansel lives in London, traveling to Paris, Istanbul and elsewhere for research, conferences and lectures.

He also runs the family estate at Smedmore, near Wareham in Dorset.Photo: Front cover of the Persian edition of Philip Mansel’s book “Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire”MMS/YAW