Spies, Scandals, and Sultans is the first English translation of a fascinating and acidly critical portrait of the Ottoman capital of Istanbul during the days of the Sultan Abd al-Hamid. This is the first time that the text, written by an Egyptian journalist and politician, has been available since 1896. The text of the Arabic original is prefaced with an extensive introduction in which the author's life is discussed and the highly controversial contents of the book are contextualized and evaluated for their accuracy against other contemporary accounts of life in the Ottoman capital.  Read more...

《间谍、丑闻和苏丹》是苏丹阿卜杜勒-哈米德时期奥斯曼帝国首都伊斯坦布尔的一幅迷人而尖锐的批评画卷的第一份英译本。这是自1896年以来，由一位埃及记者和政治家撰写的文本首次面世。阿拉伯文原著的文本前有一个广泛的介绍，其中讨论了作者的生活，并根据其他当代奥斯曼帝国首都生活的描述，对该书中极具争议的内容进行了背景分析和准确性评估。 阅读全文...