{"title":"Hugh Barnes","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"gannibal-book-hugh-barnes-9781861974624","title":"Gannibal","description":"A truly amazing 18th century life restored to history - Tsar's godson and nobleman, Russian Bluebeard, engineer of genius - who began life in an African village. When Major-General Gannibal died in 1781 in his eighties, he could look back on a long and successful life. He was the godson of Peter the Great, the Empress Elizabeth had given him nobility, thousands of acres, villages of serfs. His French education and a natural gift for mathematics had led him to fame as a fireworks expert and the architect of a string of fortifications from the Arctic Circle to China. As a husband he was a provincial Bluebeard, but his descendants would include the great poet Pushkin and a bevy of British aristocrats. Yet Abram Petrovich Gannibal had been born in very different circumstances. He was a black African, perhaps from Ethiopia, perhaps from modern Chad, sold as a child into slavery. In a brilliant biography Hugh Barnes who has tracked Gannibal's footsteps across three continents restores an extraordinary life to history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49522841518353,"sku":"GOR001254791","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51842454094097,"sku":"CIN1861974620G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53154662809873,"sku":"GOR004057688","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1861974620.jpg?v=1751249841"},{"product_id":"stolen-prince-book-hugh-barnes-9780066212654","title":"The Stolen Prince","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the spring of 1703, a young African boy stepped off a slave ship in Constantinople, the gateway between East and West. Huddling in chains, with other frightened captives, the seven-year-old claimed to be a prince of Abyssinia, a noble Moor kidnapped and stolen out of Africa. His tragedy was shared by millions of black people caught up in the Islamic slave trade, but his destiny was unique: rescued by Peter the Great, the young African became Abram Petrovich Gannibal.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eRussia's westernizing tsar adopted the child and, in a bizarre nature-and-nurture experiment, lavished on him the best education available in the new European capital of Saint Petersburg. Gannibal, the Negro of Peter the Great, soared to dizzying heights as a soldier, diplomat, mathematician and spy. He was feted in glittering salons, from the Winter Palace to the Louvre, and came to know Voltaire and Montesquieu, who praised him as the dark star of Russia's enlightenment. At the same time, his military exploits, from northern Spain to the icy wastes of Siberia -- to say nothing of his marital problems -- sealed Gannibal's reputation as the Russian Othello.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfrican prince or not, the ex-slave founded a dynasty of his own in Russia, where he came to embody the strengths and weaknesses of the country itself -- volatile, courageous, handsome, gifted and always astonishing. His descendants included not only Alexander Pushkin, Russia's greatest poet, but also, in England, several Mountbattens and others close to the royal family.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49533837312273,"sku":"GOR006332877","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50343837597969,"sku":"CIN0066212650G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51415452320017,"sku":"CIN0066212650VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0066212650.jpg?v=1750693043"},{"product_id":"gannibal-book-hugh-barnes-9781861973658","title":"Gannibal","description":"A truly amazing 18th century life restored to history - Tsar's godson and nobleman, Russian Bluebeard, engineer of genius - who began life in an African village. When Major-General Gannibal died in 1781 in his eighties, he could look back on a long and successful life. He was the godson of Peter the Great, the Empress Elizabeth had given him nobility, thousands of acres, villages of serfs. His French education and a natural gift for mathematics had led him to fame as a fireworks expert and the architect of a string of fortifications from the Arctic Circle to China. As a husband he was a provincial Bluebeard, but his descendants would include the great poet Pushkin and a bevy of British aristocrats. Yet Abram Petrovich Gannibal had been born in very different circumstances. He was a black African, perhaps from Ethiopia, perhaps from modern Chad, sold as a child into slavery. In a brilliant biography Hugh Barnes who has tracked Gannibal's footsteps across three continents restores an extraordinary life to history.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49543147651345,"sku":"GOR001824108","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ LIKE_NEW \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49798502711569,"sku":"GOR011656795","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50037678440721,"sku":"GOR002369178","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":52502257991953,"sku":"CIN1861973659G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1861973659.jpg?v=1751379787"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-hugh-barnes.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}