In the background to this enduring triangular relationship a shifting chain of alliances bound the city of Aleppo to tribes of Bedouin (horse-breeding) Arabs to the east, Kurdish clans in the hills to the north and Alawi highlanders to the west.

... for the small readership who can engage in the poetics of two cultures situated in two different ages, it is a work of extraordinary richness.

... he started out as a convinced imperialist but was so disgusted by British rule in India (and French rule in North Africa) that he eventually realized that mere administrative efficiency should never be exchanged for freedom.

His chapter on the city of Samarkand, informed by an earlier biography of Tamburlane, is so knowledgeable and intimate that one is in danger of briefly warming to this murderous but garden-loving tyrant, worthy of being listed alongside Stalin, Mao and Hitler.