Aleppo

Once upon a time, it was a city, with a vibrant life, and beautiful buildings and an European flair. Its name was Aleppo and was almost destroyed by the latest civil war, although escaped for centuries big wars, riots or earthquakes. I personally never traveled to this city, but luckier travelers friends of mine told or showed me interesting stories or pictures from here. All these pictures are mostly showing places that are just memories.  In his latest book, Philip Mansel covers the history of the city as part of the greater Middle East and the main trade routes. It is the story of a city "with a rhythm of its own, challenging categories and generalisations. Lying between the desert and the sea, the mountains of Anatolia and the banks of the Euphrates, it was Arab and Turkish, Kurdish and Armenian, Christian, Muslim and Jewish".  Until the latest civil war, the city kept at a great extent a peaceful character and went through the big world conflicts without serious damage. Together with Damascus, to whom it places itself in antithesis, it is one of the oldest continously inhabited cities in the world. Faithful to the Ottoman Empire, it was used often as a basis during the frequent wars with Iran over the control of Iraq or the battles between Sunni and Shi'a. Although its commercial role will diminish by the 17th century, it will remain till the 21st century, an important hub of cultural, trade and diplomatic resources. The impressive number of sayings and proverbs typical for Aleppo that entered the public conscience in the region are an example of the special status of this city. My favourite by far is: "If you do business with a dog, you should call him Sir". It testifies about a special sensibility and a local code of values.  The book has two big parts: one dedicated to cover various historical and political stages of development of the city, with its main benchmarks, and the other covering fragments from travel accounts about Aleppo. It is an interesting perspective which offers the chance to get a glimpse of the ambiance and profile of the city through direct accounts.  It is an informative interesting read, of academic consistency and well written. My only regret is that the author commits the big sin of many historians approaching the 'multicultural' Middle Eastern cities of pretending that there was tolerance towards the Jewish inhabitants. Only at the beginning of the 19th century there were couple of infamous "blood libels" that are not mentioned in the book. Anyway, this was not the main topic of the book, but more attention to this detail will help countering the stereotype of the 'tolerance' in the Middle East.  A lecture recommended to both historians and political scientiest, as well as to journalists covering the Middle East.  The book will be released the 28th of April.

Aleppo has been in the news much lately, as a focal point in the ongoing Syrian Civil War.  As many as tens of thousands have died in the fighting and the ancient Old City has been subjected to catastrophic destruction.  The appearance of this book is timely.  Aleppo: The Rise and Fall of Syria's Great Merchant City by Philip Mansel is functionally an obituary to the once thriving metropolis.  Mansel is a scholar of French and Middle Eastern history, with a recent emphasis on urban history: this is his third book on cosmopolitan cities of the Muslim world.  

The book has two parts.  The first is a relatively brief summary of Aleppo's history.  In ten short chapter, Mansel brings us from the early Muslim era to the present.  While Aleppo is an ancient city, with mentions in surviving tablets from 2250 BCE, Mansel argues that Aleppo is most significant as a junction between East and West.  It was the Roman conquest of Syria which introduced West, and the Ottoman rise which introduced East.  Therefore, to the narrative, Aleppo only gains its significance to the modern world after the Muslim conquests.  And most significance is brought from the intersection of Western states and the Ottoman Empire (the most western-like Muslim state at the time).

In the Ottoman Empire, Aleppo was an important site for trade to Europe, and many major European states kept diplomatic posts in the city to oversee their merchants.  This then required a special approach to government, one which was attuned to multivarious sensibilities.  This complex interplay of culture formed the backdrop to Aleppo's significance which largely continued in significance to the present day, as the rich cultural and intellectual and industrial center has been reduced to ruins.  The narrative heaps laurels on the city, as an orator giving a eulogy.

The second part of the book is a collection of accounts from people through history about Aleppo: French, English, German; merchants, adventurers, dreamers; Leonard Raurolf to Gertrude Bell.  As the first part reads as a eulogy, so the selection of accounts highlight the grandeur which once existed: a slideshow of important snapshots of the city's life being displayed on the wall behind the orator.

Before the Civil War, Aleppo was Syria's largest city.  Whether or not it will be again is open to question.  It has, in the words of the writer, entered  "dark ages".  Aleppo: The Rise and Fall of Syria's Great Merchant City is a capable eulogy.  Mansel is a skilled writer--his concision alone is evidence--and it well populated with maps and illustrations.  It is worth a read for those seeking context for recent history, and provides primary sources which might otherwise be ignored.

This is a book which has one eye on the past and the other on the present status of Aleppo, a city caught in the middle of the war in Syria. Mansel  gives us first the history of Aleppo, one of those cities, like Byzantium, which has always sat somewhere at the crossroads between various binaries, looking both East and West, religious and secular, and at the heart of various trading enterprises from the silk trade routes to French involvement in the Levant. 

The second half of the book comprises a collection of historical memoirs and travel stories from writers such as Gertrude Lawrence centreing on Aleppo. Anyone familiar with the travel literature may find little new here, but Mansel provides a timely elegy for a city with a rich and diverse heritage.

Aleppo in the simplest terms is a history of a city. The city was once the place to visit. People from different cultures, countries, traditions, and beliefs made it home. Oddly, these groups were able to inhabit the same city with relative peace in a time when culture clashes led to death. 

With times changing and travel routes altering, the city began to see a change, too. The exotic destination became troubled and peace was harder to find. 

As a lover of history, the story of Aleppo was fascinating. Before I saw this book, I had never heard of the once booming city. Mansel is able to merge the history of the city with the history of its inhabitants. Photographs and historic quotes bring the city to life.

“What is left of Aleppo has become a city of bread queues, electricity and water cuts, rationing and road-blocks. Rubble and rubbish fill the streets…Aleppo had once carried a message: that different races and religions can coexist in the same city.”

When I visited Aleppo ten years ago, its citadel towered over the city, and the souqs below it sprawled in a fascinating adventure. It wasn’t a tourist hub, but perhaps for that reason people were tremendously friendly, as they were across Syria. All of that is effectively gone, and Syria is undergoing a heartbreaking loss of memory. For that reason, books like Aleppo are tremendously timely.

Aleppo is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world: humans have lived there since the 5th millennium BC. Standing as it does between the Middle East and Europe, it has served as a cultural melting pot for almost that long, prizing diversity as a means to trade. When one sultan was asked to expel the Jews, he responded that flowers were shown to best advantage when mixed with others of different colours, and refused.

Aleppo focuses on the history of the city under the Ottoman Empire, when it was a major economic hub. Camels and caravans from India, Iraq, Iran, the Gulf, Erzurum, Damascus, and the Arabian Peninsula stopped at Aleppo before heading to the Mediterranean and Europe, meeting merchants from Venice, England, France, and across Europe going the other way. Lawrence of Arabia would remember it as a place of coexistence, shaped by the civilization that had wheeled around it without being overtaken by them. Today, its population has fallen from two million to less than a quarter of that.

Having introduced the history in its first half, Aleppo’s second half is excerpts of travel diaries from travelers who visited it during the Ottoman period. I found these a bit disappointing, since a number of them are difficult to follow without considerable background knowledge. They do have highlights, however: there is a particularly thoughtful essay by Francis William Newman, younger brother of the future cardinal, and Gertrude Bell’s comments are also very good. The diaries do not shy from detail: one striking passage explains attempts to avoid Aleppo Button, which caused nasty boils, by taking a person already badly infected and taking some of the boil and injecting it into someone as a vaccination.

My favourite part, however, are the Aleppine proverbs the author shares, almost all of them trade-related. If you do business with a dog, you should call him sir; excess is obnoxious, even in religious worship; the piaster equips its owner with seven languages; the greatest blessing is in things concealed from view.

The book isn’t perfect, and its structure can be a bit hard to follow or absorb. It does, however, provide an important reminder of the happy and glorious history Syria has had, and for people interested in the city, it’s a fun and interesting read.

Disclosure: I read Aleppo as an Advance Reader Copy. It is released April 26th.

This book is a text book that help you learn about life in Aleppo and it starts almost at the beginning of the city's founding. The author uses letters, books and journals of travelers thru the ages to describe the city the people what they eat and ware as well as the politics of the area.
It is an interesting book that will help when you hear the news about what is going on with the battles with ISIS.

Great read. You will be up all night.!