Philip Robert Rhys Mansel (born October 19, 1951) is a British historian of courts and cities, and the author of a number of books about the history of France and the Ottoman Empire. He was born in London in 1951 and educated at Eton College, Balliol College, Oxford, and obtained a doctorate at University College London in 1978.[1] He has lived in Paris, Istanbul and Beirut and now lives in London.