David Urquhart: The Spirit of the East, Illustrated in a Journal of Travels through Roumeli during an Eventful Period. London 1838 First edition, large 8vo,complete it two volumes,modern red leather over boards, large uncut copy, text clean and bright, unnoticed pierced ex libris stamp on title,overall in very good condition. Urquhart was not just a traveler; he was a diplomat, a Member of Parliament, and a fierce Turkophile. His book stands in stark contrast to the Philhellenic works of the era. He argued that the Ottoman social and municipal systems were superior to the centralized bureaucracies of Europe. He strongly believed the local self-governance found in Ottoman provinces was a model of liberty that Europe had lost. Urquhart was obsessed with the Russian threat. He wrote this book partly to convince the British public that a strong Ottoman Empire was the only thing preventing Russia from dominating the Mediterranean. A very influential book that helped shift British policy away from the Philhellenism of Navarino to the preservation of the Ottoman Empire in the 1830s. He devoted significant portions of his book to the hygiene and social rituals of the bath, which he saw as a pinnacle of Eastern civilization. His travels through Roumeli,the Ottoman Balkans, provide deep insights into the Albanian and Greek mountain communities. He describes their traditional costumes, laws, and military spirit with a level of detail that rivals the best accounts, but with a much more sympathetic lens toward the Sultan's sovereignty. Urquhart was in Greece during the reign of King Otto. However, he viewed the Bavarians as an alien imposition that was destroying the organic local traditions of the Greek people.One of the most provocative and influential travelogues of the 19th century, the contrast on Philhellenism