The extraordinary story of a slave-girl who rose from concubine to become the Ottoman Empire's only queen.
Leslie Peirce was until recently Silver Professor of History, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at NYU. She has also taught at Cornell and UC Berkeley. She earned her BA and MA from Harvard and received a PhD in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. Peirce's work has won her two Fulbrights, two NEH fellowships, a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, and other academic distinctions.
A riveting story of power, patronage and harem politics in
sixteenth-century Istanbul
*Sarah Gristwood, author of Game of Queens*
A brilliantly researched account of the life and times of Roxelana,
the extraordinary 16th-century Ottoman slave girl who triumphed
against all odds to become a queen. Played out against a complex
tapestry of exotic court life, rivalry, and passion, Leslie Peirce
expertly sifts through the historical record, separating myth from
reality to reveal the undeniable significance of this exceptional
woman.
*Nancy Goldstone, author of Daughters of the Winter Queen: Four
Remarkable Sisters, the Crown of Bohemia, and the Enduring Legacy
of Mary, Queen of Scots*
Engaging...Peirce persuasively recasts Roxelana as a pragmatist
adept at navigating both palace politics and international
relations, and as a pioneer who established a more powerful role
for Ottoman women.
*The New Yorker*
Leslie Peirce's erudition and long dedication to the study of
Ottoman society and the imperial harem have yielded an engrossing
and wonderfully readable portrait of Roxelana, embedded in the
lives of her contemporaries and the tumult of her times. Peirce's
scholarly authority allows for a deftly crafted narrative: a
lively, sympathetic and cautiously imaginative vision of the family
at the centre of the 16th-century Ottoman world, grounded in deep
social history.
*Marilyn Booth, Khalid bin Abdullah Al Saud Professor for the Study
of the Contemporary Arab World, University of Oxford*
The fascinating story of one remarkable harem slave, who broke
through [the] rocky ceiling, claiming unprecedented authority for
women and forever changing the nature of the Ottoman government ...
This lively book resurrects Roxelana.
*The New York Times Book Review*
Ask a Question About this Product More... |