Publisher's Weekly Review
Brotton (Great Maps), professor of Renaissance studies at Queen Mary University of London, details the difficult diplomatic shifts Elizabeth I maneuvered in the wake of her excommunication in 1570. Having lost much of her previous access to Catholic commerce, Elizabeth found new connections in fellow Protestant lands as well as the Islamic world, notably the Ottoman Empire. An unstable triangle of Protestant-Muslim-Catholic alliances followed. Brotton successfully details the "unlikely" alliance through intriguing portrayals of England's first ambassadors to Iran, Morocco, and the Ottoman Empire, noting the uneven growth of trade between the island nation and Muslim powers. Thanks to the greater number of resources from the Western travelers, the narrative remains strongest when focusing on the East, but Brotton offers a glimpse of the impressions Muslim diplomats and traders made when visiting London. He also explores their impact on British culture through the evolution of characterizations in Elizabethan theater, especially the works of Marlowe and Shakespeare. The book's true action occurs in smoothly written descriptions of delicate negotiations set in the East, highlighted with the attempts by Protestant, Catholic, and Muslim rulers to pit rivals against one another. Brotton blends meticulous research with a deft touch of the mysterious, resulting in a fascinating shared history of East and West. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Brotton (Great Maps, 2014) provides a fascinating account of a neglected episode in history: the improbable alliance that flourished between Elizabeth I of England and Sultan Murad III of the vast and powerful Ottoman Empire. Excommunicated by the pope and largely condemned by the bulk of Catholic Europe, Elizabeth sought an Anglo-Ottoman pathway to trade in order to ensure her own political survival and to improve England's fragile economic outlook. In a hugely successful effort to finance these initial forays into the Near East, the first joint-stock company an innovative new business model that would be used to great effect in the colonization of both India and America was formed, with Elizabeth's blessing. As merchants journeyed deeper into Morocco, Turkey, and Persia, they brought back exotic goods, novel ideas, and new vocabularies, sparking a craze for all things Moorish and deeply influencing Western culture for centuries to come. By tying together colorful stories of both world leaders and the intrepid men and women who acted as the first emissaries to the Muslim world, Brotton vividly reveals the intricacies of the delicately balanced relationship between the political, religious, economic, and social realities of the Elizabethan era in a work with great relevance to today.--Flanagan, Margaret Copyright 2016 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
"neither the earth, the seas, nor the heavens, have so much force to separate us, as the godly disposition of natural humanity, and mutual benevolence have to join us together." So wrote Elizabeth I to the Shah of Persia in 1561. Her letter, composed in a mixture of Hebrew, Italian and Latin, was designed to open up trade between the two countries, and was entrusted to an extraordinary traveler, Anthony Jenkinson, as he boarded a ship laden with woolen cloth. Jenkinson, a mercer by profession, had already held private audiences with two of the world's most powerful rulers: the Ottoman sultan, Suleyman the Magnificent, and the Russian czar, Ivan the Terrible. He's just one of the fascinating characters who forged England's first sustained interaction with the Muslim world, a neglected aspect of Elizabethan history that Jerry Brotton, a professor of Renaissance studies at Queen Mary University of London and the author of "A History of the World in 12 Maps," brings vividly to life in this elegant and entertaining book. Jenkinson's interview with Shah Tahmasp was not a success, not least because another great Muslim power, the Ottoman Empire, chose to deprecate his mission. Religion was a factor too: Jenkinson's footsteps in the palace were blotted out with sand, as Brotton notes, "in a symbolic erasing of the polluting presence of the unbeliever." But, then, religion was one of the reasons behind this burst of interest in the Muslim world. Elizabeth could not stay forever neutral in the Pan-European struggle between Roman Catholicism and reform, and in 1570 she was excommunicated by the pope. From then on, Protestant England was a rogue state, looking elsewhere for trade and alliances, an Elizabethan Brexit, perhaps. Caught in a sea of trouble but feisty, ambitious and none too bothered by theological abstractions, Elizabethans reached out to foreign lands that were, at least at the outset, only dimly understood. But within roughly 40 years, England had struck agreements with the major Muslim powers and had established a network of spies, diplomats, traders, adventurers and privateers "from Marrakesh via Constantinople to Isfahan." They ranged from the incomparable Jenkinson to the incorrigible Anthony Sherley, knight, chancer and 16th-century snake-oil salesman, who wound up touring the capitals of Europe as an emissary of the Shah of Persia. The defeat of the Spanish Armada was celebrated with fireworks in Marrakesh, while in Constantinople English merchants secured commercial privileges that remained in force until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1923. Brotton punctuates his narrative with ruminations on the Moors and Turks on the English stage, which varied from caricature to Othello; yet the real life encounters could be more complex and surprising. Hassan Aga, treasurer of Algiers, turned out to be a former English merchant, Samson Rowlie. Captured, converted and even castrated, he was forging a successful career in the Algerian Civil Service - a fate "more appealing," Brotton supposes, than "life as a struggling, peripatetic Protestant merchant from Norfolk." The Queen sent a Lancashire blacksmith, Thomas Dallam, to Constantinople in 1599 with a splendid clockwork organ for the sultan. In return, he got a peep into Mehmed's harem. Later, his Turkish guide turned out to be "an Englishman, borne in Chorley in Lancashire; his name Finch." Dallam's hometown was scarcely 20 miles away. In an age when most people lived and died where they were born, some figuratively traveled to the moon. Out there, for all the talk of idolatry and infidels, discussions could be brisk and purposeful, boundaries porous, identities fluid. Even in that religiously charged era, the so-called clash of civilizations could sound very faint indeed. ? Fascinating characters forged England's first interaction with the Muslim world. jason goodwin's books include "Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire" and a series of detective novels set in 19th-century Istanbul.
Library Journal Review
History watchers know that 2016's Brexit doesn't mark the first time England has divorced itself from Europe. With the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I's excommunication in 1570, England looked to the south (Morocco) and east (the Ottoman Empire and its enemy, Persia) for new allies in trade and war. In this work, Brotton (A History of the World in 12 Maps) tells the story of England's daring, often misguided attempts to bridge the physical, cultural, and political divide among empires. The author brings the nuanced account to life with an abundance of primary source material-correspondence, dramas, and histories of the day-and readers will want to take the time to parse the 16th-century language. The result is a vivid picture of the era's military vicissitudes, shifting alliances, xenophobia, and fascination with an Islamic world that wielded far more power than Elizabethan England. These machinations, powered by a colorful cast of diplomats, pirates, historians, playwrights, and politicians who distrusted yet needed one another, offer a window into a complex early chapter of East-West -relations. VERDICT This microlevel history for nonhistorians is strong on realpolitik; not a quick read but a rewarding one.-Lisa Peet, Library Journal © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
