Jerry Brotton is a professor of Renaissance studies at Queen Mary University of London. A renowned broadcaster and critic, he is the author of Global Interests: Renaissance Art Between East and West (with Lisa Jardine), The Renaissance Bazaar, The Sale of the Late King’s Goods, a finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize and the Hessell-Tiltman Prize, Great Maps, and The New York Times bestselling, award-winning A History of the World in Twelve Maps, which has been translated into eleven languages. The Sultan and the Queen published as This Orient Isle in the UK, was a Financial Times Book of the Year.
“Jenkinson is 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 brings
vividly to life in this elegant and entertaining book… 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.”
– Jason Goodwin, The New York Times Book Review
“We are accustomed to seeing Elizabeth as a dazzling but
essentially limited monarch, obsessed with defending her small
corner of northwest Europe. . . But as Brotton shows, for the last
quarter of her reign, England was also deeply engaged with the
three great powers of the Islamic world. The Sultan and the
Queen is both a colorful narrative of that extraordinary time
and a reminder that our own fortunes and those of the wider Islamic
world have been intertwined for much longer than we might
think.”
—Dan Jones, The Times
"Queen Elizabeth I had bad teeth. The snaggle-toothed
sovereign owed her decay to copious amounts of sugar that began
flowing into England from Morocco in the 16th century. Candied
fruits were her absolute favorite. The story of Elizabeth’s
unfortunate smile is but one facet of a much larger and far more
important history of economic, cultural and political relations
between the queen’s rather negligible island, the sultan of Morocco
and the fabulously wealthy Muslim world that dominated half of the
Mediterranean and controlled Europe’s access to the east. Jerry
Brotton’s wonderful book reveals this instructive history of
Protestant England’s intense interactions with Islam, showing how
Muslims shaped English culture, consumerism and literature during
the half-millennium between the Crusades and the rise of the
British Empire in the Middle East."
— The Wall Street Journal
“Impressive and highly readable. . . Brotton emphasizes the extent
to which Elizabethan England was shot through with influences,
stories, individuals and products drawn from the Islamic world. The
orient is not elsewhere but already here, both thrillingly and
uncomfortably close to home. . . Brotton’s book crackles with an
energy that illuminates and vivifies its larger claims.”
—Financial Times
“The Sultan and the Queen evokes an England struggling to find
a place for itself in a world that it had not yet learned to
dominate, and often making colossal diplomatic blunders in the
process. Brotton is a gifted writer who is able to present this
history as an exciting series of critical and suspense-filled
encounters."
--The Washington Post
“Jerry Brotton’s sparkling new book sets out just how extensive and
complex England’s relationship with the Arab and Muslim world once
was. . . It seems extraordinary that, in a time before mass travel,
when most people died a stone’s throw from where they were born,
there were nevertheless those whose adventures led them to the
edges of the known world – and to cultures so different from their
own as to seem dreamlike. But Brotton’s book is full of them. . .
At a time when many see Islam as a recent and strange intruder,
Brotton’s excellent history is a reminder that a careful study of
England’s 'island story' shows just how wrong they are.”
—The Guardian
"I adore this book. It resonated deeply with me."
– Elif Shafak, author of The Bastard of Istanbul
"Fascinating and timely. . . An illuminating account of a neglected
aspect of Elizabethan England: its rich, complex, and
ambivalent relations with the Muslim world."
—Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Swerve
“A lively, smart, exhaustively researched book… Traders, using the
new-fangled concept of joint-stock companies to spread the
commercial risk, shipped home everything from Oriental carpets and
luxurious silks to sugar and saltpetre, essential in making
gunpowder… Brotton delves into diaries, letters and archives to
uncover a long-ignored part of English history. Trade was anything
but smooth or orderly. English adventurers struggled to understand
the cultures, rivalries and religious differences. (The term Muslim
would not be used in England until 1614.) Pirates and shipwrecks
were constant dangers, as was capture.”
—Macleans
“An exceptionally rich and brilliant book. In bringing to life
Elizabethan England’s ambivalent engagement with Islam, Jerry
Brotton shows how profoundly that encounter shaped English trade,
diplomacy, and the Islam-obsessed drama of Shakespeare and his
contemporaries. The story he tells could not be more timely.”
—James Shapiro, author The Year of Lear: 1606
“This fascinating account uncovers the lively exchange between
Elizabeth’s England, the Ottoman Empire, and Morocco. Christianity
and Islam were still at odds, but Elizabeth gladly sought alliance
with Muslim lands against the shared threat of Catholic
Europe.”
—Natalie Zemon Davis, author of The Return of Martin Guerre
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