Levant

"Philip Mansel’s book Levant is a comparison of Beirut, Alexandria and Smyrna in the modern age. He talks about how the Christians and non-Christians got on. Obviously he ends with the disaster of the Christians being squeezed out, and he feels that things went downhill after that. It’s an awfully good book. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . His heart’s in Alexandria. He studies the history of the British there, and makes the place come alive. I’m sure some of these Greeks must have been insufferable. You come across them in Evelyn Waugh and Olivia Manning, these Levantine Greeks. On the other hand, they did good. He also discusses the Great Fire of Smyrna [in 1922]. A third of the population was Greek, a bit more was Armenian, and of course afterwards they mainly went. It’s a very sad business, the burning down of the Christian quarter. But Philip is very fair-minded about it. He recognises that you can’t just say that the Turks burnt down Smyrna without looking at the background. I don’t know Alexandria or Beirut very well. But the Levant is very different. Turkey is miles ahead. I was in Aleppo [in northern Syria] in January, and when you go north from Aleppo over the Turkish border it’s almost like moving up a lock in a canal. That part of Turkey is not even that progressive, but you can sense that things work. There are hospitals and schools and a civil service which does its stuff. The difference with Aleppo is night and day."