The Christian rulers of Venice, France and Tudor England all vied for alliances with Suleiman, fearing him even more than the other great global ruler of the day, the Habsburg emperor Charles V.

Suleyman the Magnificent had his hand on Christendom’s throat. He could paralyze all of Europe’s trade at the drop of a Turkish turban and had more Christian subjects massed under his rule ...

THE LION HOUSE: The Coming of a King. By Christopher de Bellaigue. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 304 pages. $28.

He is Suleyman I, known as Suleyman the Magnificent in Europe and Suleyman the Lawgiver in the Ottoman Empire of which he was the 10th and longest-reigning sultan, from 1520 until his death in 1566.

The golden age of the Ottomans. At school we read about Suleiman the Magnificent, you know, his life. Nevertheless in history books I don’t think we get to understand the feelings of the human ...