People like Philip Mansel

Philip Mansel (born 1951) is a historian of courts and cities, and the author of a number of books about the history of France and the Ottoman Empire. He was born in London in 1951 and educated at Eton College, Balliol College, Oxford, and obtained a doctorate at University College London in 1978. He has lived in Paris, Istanbul and Beirut and now lives in London.

Philip Mansel's first book, Louis XVIII, was published in 1981 and this – together with subsequent works such as Paris Between Empires 1814–1852 (2001) – established him as an authority on the French monarchy, a fact recognised later by his appointment as Chevalier des Arts et Lettres. Seven of his books have been translated into French. In 2019 his book King of World: The life of Louis XIV, was published in London by Penguin. It has been translated into Dutch, Italian, French and German and was published in the US in 2020 by UChicago.