The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs

· Basic Books · Narrated by Jamie Parker
4.3
3 reviews
Audiobook
17 hr 30 min
Unabridged
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About this audiobook

A book as sweeping, colorful, and rich in extraordinary characters as the empire which it describes - Tom Holland

The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic-Asian antithesis of the Christian-European West. But the reality was starkly different: the Ottomans' multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious domain reached deep into Europe's heart. In their breadth and versatility, the Ottoman rulers saw themselves as the new Romans.

Recounting the Ottomans' remarkable rise from a frontier principality to a world empire, Marc David Baer traces their debts to their Turkish, Mongolian, Islamic and Byzantine heritage; how they used both religious toleration and conversion to integrate conquered peoples; and how, in the nineteenth century, they embraced exclusivity, leading to ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the dynasty's demise after the First World War. Upending Western concepts of the Renaissance, the Age of Exploration, the Reformation, this account challenges our understandings of sexuality, orientalism and genocide.

Radically retelling their remarkable story, The Ottomans is a magisterial portrait of a dynastic power, and the first to truly capture its cross-fertilisation between East and West.

(P)2021 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Ratings and reviews

4.3
3 reviews
Joel Taplin
August 7, 2022
A quite comprehensive book, which for me had quite a few surprises in the early Ottoman history. Its good to know more about how the Ottoman empire started, and how it slowly changed to become the sick man of Europe. The author does push his view that the Ottomans were part of Europe somewhat.
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About the author

Marc David Baer is professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of five books, including Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe, which won the Albert Hourani Prize.

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