A celebration of the history of Aleppo, now a tragic casualty of Syria’s civil war

Aleppo is now a city in ruins, bombed by the Syrian air force, threatened by ISIL, its population decimated. But it was once a world city.

Philip Mansel reveals the little-known but vibrant history of Aleppo, one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, for the first time in English. Collating a rich array of contemporary accounts by British and French consuls and merchants who for 400 years called Aleppo home, Mansel uncovers a cultural melting pot, famed in the Ottoman Empire for its souks, its food and its music. We learn how Aleppo was a crossroads of East and West, where Muslims, Christians and Jews lived and traded together in peace for five centuries.

In this timely book Philip Mansel describes Aleppo’s decline from a pinnacle of cultural and economic power. It is a poignant testament to a city shattered by Syria’s civil war, and a warning to other world cities, from London and Paris to Dubai.