Books by Leslie Peirce
“She came from that Eurasian steppe which was a major hunting ground for slave merchants at this time…Hürrem would probably have been converted to Islam before she entered Süleyman’s household. It’s likely that she received some education in the household. We know through her correspondence that she knew how to read…By all accounts, Hürrem was an extremely gifted, intelligent person…Hürrem was one of Süleyman’s biggest supporters. Süleyman manumitted her and she died as a free person in 1558. Süleyman had multiple children by Hürrem, including four boys. Immediately after she died, her two surviving sons entered into a deadly succession contest that determined the tenor of the last years of Süleyman’s reign…So, yes, this is the right book to read about Hürrem.” Read more...
The best books on Sultan Süleyman
Kaya Şahin, Historian
Interviews where books by Leslie Peirce were recommended
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1
Suleymanname: The Illustrated History of Suleyman the Magnificent
by Esin Atil (editor) -
2
The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire
by Gülru Necipoglu -
3
Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Ali
by Cornell Fleischer -
4
Empress of the East: How a Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire
by Leslie Peirce -
5
Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions that Forged Modern Europe
by John Julius Norwich
The best books on Sultan Süleyman, recommended by Kaya Şahin
The best books on Sultan Süleyman, recommended by Kaya Şahin
The Ottoman ruler Süleyman was one of the most powerful men in early modern Europe and highly adept at building his reputation for posterity. In European languages, he is still often graced with the epithet ‘the Magnificent.’ The reality was much more mixed, as a new biography of Süleyman shows. Historian Kaya Şahin talks us through books to better understand Sultan Süleyman and the world he lived in.