Covering the greatest three centuries of Turkish history, this book tells the story of the Ottoman Empire's growth into a vast Middle Eastern Power.Born as a military frontier principality at the turn of the Fourteenth century, Turkey developed into the dominant force in Anatolia and the Balkans, growing to become the most powerful Islamic state after 1517 when it incorporated the old Arab lands. This distinctively Eastern culture, with all its detail and intricaci...

Deans treatise, History of the Otttoman Empire, chronicles 600 years of the empire from 1250 to 1850, including the Siege of Constantinople, the Battle of Lepanto, the Siege of Vienna, the war with Russia, and Greeces independence. A table of contents is included for easy navigation.

Afghan-American Nadia Hashimi's literary debut novel is a searing tale of powerlessness, fate, and the freedom to control one's own fate that combines the cultural flavor and emotional resonance of the works of Khaled Hosseini, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Lisa See.In Kabul, 2007, with a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school, and can rarely leave the house. Their only hope lies in the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows young ...

A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this “extraordinary” and beloved novel that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review), named a New York Times Best Book of the 21st Century.Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a weal...

The Romans regarded her as "fatale monstrum" -- a fatal omen. Pascal said the shape of her nose changed the history of the world. Shakespeare portrayed her as an icon of tragic love. But who was Cleopatra, really?We almost feel that we know Cleopatra, but our distorted image of a self-destructive beauty does no justice to Cleopatra's true genius. In Cleopatra, Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley offers an unexpectedly vivid portrait of a skillful Egyptian ruler. Strippin...

This biography of the 12th century Islamic military leader provides a fascinating view of the Crusades and the Medieval Muslim world.Saladin was a Kurdish military leader who led the fight against the Crusades and rose to become first Sultan of Egypt and Syria. He united warring Muslim lands, reconquered the bulk of Crusader states and faced King Richard I of England in one of the most famous confrontations in medieval warfare. His extraordinary character and career...

Spanning two and a half millennia, Anthony Pagden’s mesmerizing Worlds at War delves deep into the roots of the “clash of civilizations” between East and West that has always been a battle over ideas, and whose issues have never been more urgent.Worlds At War begins in the ancient world, where Greece saw its fight against the Persian Empire as one between freedom and slavery, between monarchy and democracy, between individuality and the worship of men as gods. Her...

History is a rich, varied and fascinating subject, so it's rare to find the whole lot in one book...until now. "The History of the World in Bite-Sized Chunks" pulls it all together, from the world's earliest civilizations in 3500 BC to the founding of the United Nations in 1945, passing by the likes of Charlemagne, the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean War, to name a few. Here's your chance to introduce yourself to the full spectrum of world history, and discover just how the modern world cam...

Philip Mansel's highly acclaimed history absorbingly charts the interaction between the vibrantly cosmopolitan capital of Constantinople - the city of the world's desire - and its ruling family.In 1453, Mehmed the Conqueror entered Constantinople on a white horse, beginning an Ottoman love affair with the city that lasted until 1924, when the last Caliph hurriedly left on the Orient Express. For almost five centuries Constantinople, with its enormous racial and cultural diversity, ...

Few personalities from classical antiquity are more famous--yet more poorly understood--than Cleopatra VII, queen of Egypt. In this major biography, Duane Roller reveals that Cleopatra was in fact a learned and visionary leader whose overarching goal was always the preservation of her dynasty and kingdom. Roller's authoritative account is the first to be based solely on primary materials from the Greco-Roman period: literary sources, Egyptian documents (Cleopatra's own writings), and repre...

"Full of rare and exact information…A distinguished work." —New York Review of BooksThe eleventh-century Muslim world was a great civilization while Europe lay slumbering in the Dark Ages. Slowly, inevitably, Europe and Islam came together, through trade and war, crusade and diplomacy. The ebb and flow between these two worlds for seven hundred years, illuminated here by a brilliant historian, is one of the great sagas of world history.

What was the significance of the Ottoman Empire? What lessons can be drawn from the civilization that the ottomans created? What does the Ottoman Empire mean to us today? One of Turkey's leading historians answers all of these questions in "Ottomans, The Re-Discovery", a brilliant set of learned and engaging reflections on the everyday life, legacy and enduring relevance of the Ottomans.Ilber Ortayli is the director of the Topkapi Palace Museum, Professor of History at Galatasaray ...