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"White Gold" by Giles Milton

In his megalomaniacal pursuit to build the largest palace complex in the northern hemisphere, stretching 300 miles between two of his cities, the sultan of Morocco used tens of thousands of European slaves either captured at sea by Barbary pirates, or through Viking-style raids off the coast of England and other countries. Captives were treated to some of the most horrific conditions imaginable, at least 15 hours hard labor per day with disease and torture for the sultan's entertainment killing even more. Thousands of slaves were burned through and sacrificed for the sultan's massive vanity project, which survives today mainly as rubble. Hardly 30 years passed before an earthquake hit and caused the ceilings to cave in. The court fled in a panic, never to return. Today the remaining walls are makeshift homes for the area's poor.