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Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire

Jason Goodwin (Goodreads Author)

3.66 · Rating details · 1,004 ratings · 139 reviews

For six hundred years, the Ottoman Empire swelled and declined. Islamic, martial, civilized, and tolerant, it advanced in three centuries from the dusty foothills of Anatolia to rule on the Danube and the Nile; at its height, Indian rajahs and the kings of France beseeched the empire's aid. In its last three hundred years the empire seemed ready to collapse, a prodigy of s ...more

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Paperback, 368 pages

Published January 1st 2003 by Picador (first published 1998)

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Feb 15, 2018 WarpDrive rated it liked it

I chose this book as I wanted an introductory overview on this peculiar and fascinating polity, with the objective to gain a better knowledge of one of the main players in Middle Eastern and Balkan history, a multi-ethnic and complex Empire so often unfairly neglected or stereotyped in history books.

I must regretfully state that my objectives have been only partially fulfilled, and that this book has been a bit of a hit-and-miss reading experience.
I perfectly understand that the task of conden ...more

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Sep 02, 2014 Jonfaith rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: flat_circle_of_lies_and_despair

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things . Machiavelli

Of course Niccolo also said that conquering the Ottomans would be most difficult, but afterwards rather easy to hold or occupy. It is good being glib. I violated my latest reading plan over the holiday weekend.

Ottomans did not, on the whole, engage in trade; they worked in administration; their minorities, Gr ...more

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Nov 15, 2017 Yelda Basar Moers rated it did not like it

Shelves: 2017-reading-challenge, history, istanbul, ottoman-empire-history, turkey, turkish-history, esma-novel

I just finished this dark and stormy popular historical book about the Ottoman Empire and I have to say that within fifteen pages of reading it I was utterly confused! Confused because studying Ottoman history for more than a decade now, and having lived in Turkey (and born there!), I didn't find anything Ottoman Turkish about it! And then that confusion I mentioned turned to anger! And then I was enraged!!! The last time I felt this feeling of injustice was several years ago when I read Glenn B I just finished this dark and stormy popular historical book about the Ottoman Empire and I have to say that within fifteen pages of reading it I was utterly confused! Confused because studying Ottoman history for more than a decade now, and having lived in Turkey (and born there!), I didn't find anything Ottoman Turkish about it! And then that confusion I mentioned turned to anger! And then I was enraged!!! The last time I felt this feeling of injustice was several years ago when I read Glenn Beck's awful book-- It IS About Islam-- basically slamming Islam as a faith with footless arguments!

I sincerely felt that author Jason Goodwin gave an unfair and dismal portrayal of the Ottoman Turks and their history (late 13th to early 19th century). It's sad that Goodwin left out much of its glory, and beauty, and its tolerance as a model of meritocracy, multiculturalism and egalitarianism. Some even say it was a model for the United States!

The Ottoman Turks ruled for 600 years over a vast territory which included half of Europe. They let the people they ruled practice their own religion in their own houses of worship. In Istanbul you could find a mosque, church and synagogue on the same block! The Ottomans were pious and spirituality was infused into every part of their life. They revered nature, flowers, and time spent outdoors among trees and birds. They gave special, caring attention to animals, dogs, cats and children (that's probably why we have so many stray cats in Turkey!!!). They were highly charitable. I'm not saying the Ottomans were angels, but they were most certainly not the people portrayed in this book!

Some examples of egregious depictions of the Ottomans and Istanbul...In the prologue he mentions the "grey, grey waters of the Bosphorus." Not true!!! I don't know what he is talking about! Has he ever visited Istanbul? The waters of the Bosphorus are so vividly blue that you would have to be colorblind not to notice this. But instead he tries to give a murky landscape to the main body way that flows through Istanbul. He writes of Topkapi Palace, the glorious palace that was home to the Sultans of the Empire for hundreds of years as a "petrified encampment of some defeated army." This is insulting to our past and the palace is no such thing-- I can attest to it myself having visited it numerous times. It is gorgeous and breathtaking. I wonder if he even visited it? He writes that the Ottomans were "ignorant of geography" and didn't use clocks! The Ottomans were working with the British, the French, even the Russians! How could this be possible if they didn't know geography or use clocks, or live in a modern way. Sultan Murad III was in correspondence with Queen Elizabeth I whom he had an alliance with, and Sultan Suleiman dealt constantly with the Venetians. The Ottomans were constantly interacting with the European world, yet Mr. Goodwin portrays then as anachronistic barbarians!

He describes the empire as "darker," "gloomy," and "helpless." He writes of the Ottoman dynastic family as "mad." He specifically writes that they were an "incredibly mad and morbid family." He doesn't at all mention the magnificent Westward and Enlightened reigns of Selim III, Mahmud II and the incredible women who ruled it, Kosem Sultan and Hurrem Sultan, one as regent, the other behind the scenes.

For me, this was not a true account of the empire but rather something created in Goodwin's own imagination. In the resources section I don't see the well known Turkish historians of the Ottoman Empire or many Turkish sources at all. This is his idea of this time and place, not the time and place itself! It's fascinating how even nonfiction historical books can become fiction in how they are penned!

I would suggest that Mr. Goodwin spend some time in Turkey and take a course in Turkish, for starters. And then consider rewriting his version of our history! And I'm totally shocked that Picador (the publisher) did not do their diligence and allowed this book to be published!

If you want a fictional account of the Ottoman Empire made up by the author's own imagination, then read this book. Otherwise I'd toss it! I've read over 100 books on the Ottoman Empire and lived in Turkey and can say this book has nothing to do with it! ...more

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Sep 21, 2011 Angela rated it liked it

Shelves: middle-east, history

This book is sort of like a curiosity cabinet of travelogue and ethno-history, which is both its strength and weakness. You'll learn about obsessive clock-collecting, tulip madness, Istanbul's stray dogs, the sultan's silver slippers, madness and drownings and strangulation. Old-fashioned generalizations of ethnic character border on political incorrectness in a fun-but-wrong 19th century way. It's a theatrical, moody, stage-setting book. It's a zeitgeist book, more a diorama than a dissertation ...more

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May 18, 2013 Rebecca rated it it was ok

Shelves: history

There's a lot of interesting detail here. Unfortunately, it's incredibly confusing. The author seems to believe that his readers are already intimately familiar with many of the people, battles, titles, etc of the Ottomans (in which case, why read a survey history book on the topic?). Since many of the sultans have the same name, this becomes extra confusing. Worse, there's only a vague nod towards linearity. Often, the century being discussed will jump from something in the 1500s in one paragra ...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Jim rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, middle-east

Perhaps one of the reasons we are having so many problems relating to the Middle East and the Muslim world is that we choose to avert our gaze from it. Practically no one of my acquaintance knows anything about the Ottoman Empire, which lasted some 600 years. Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire by Jason Goodwin is an excellent place to start. It ranks with the classic The Ottoman Centuries by Lord Kinross, which takes a more traditional chronologically structured approach to t Perhaps one of the reasons we are having so many problems relating to the Middle East and the Muslim world is that we choose to avert our gaze from it. Practically no one of my acquaintance knows anything about the Ottoman Empire, which lasted some 600 years. Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire by Jason Goodwin is an excellent place to start. It ranks with the classic The Ottoman Centuries by Lord Kinross, which takes a more traditional chronologically structured approach to the subject, while Goodwin, while appearing to be more impressionistic, actually covers the ground just as well.

As he states in his introduction,

This book is about a people who do not exist. The word 'Ottoman' does not describe a place. Nobody nowadays speaks their language. Only a few professors can begin to understand their poetry -- 'We have no classics,' snapped a Turkish poet in 1964 at a poetry symposium in Sofia, when asked to acquaint the group with examples of classical Ottoman verse.

Who, then, were the Ottomans? Originally, they were a roving military clique under the command of a sultan. They differed from the Arabs in their great seventh century conquests by not caring all that much about converting infidels to Islam. In fact, during the early centuries of the Empire, they were far more liberal in their treatment of Orthodox Christians, Jews, and others than almost any other peoples.

And they had a formidable army, one that threatened twice to invade Central Europe by besieging Vienna, only to fail twice. Their infantry, incidentally, did not consist of Muslims, but of Janissaries "recruited" from among their Christian client states. Only the spahis, their cavalry, was substantially Turkish and Muslim.

Goodwin regales us with hundreds of anecdotes which are endlessly fascinating and make his one of the most fascinating histories of the last few decades. Did you know, for example, that the Empire did not have a printing press until the 18th century (both Kinross and Goodwin point this out in their histories)? Did you know that the streets of Constantinople and other Ottoman cities were crowded with stray dogs, and that the French offered to buy them to manufacture gloves?

When Osama bin Laden was setting up Al-Qaida, he referred to the Caliphate of Islam as having been vacant for some 70 years, and suggested by implication that he wanted to try out for the job. What the late terrorist forgot to mention was that the Sultan/Caliphs (until almost the very end, they were the same) did not take their role as titular head of Islam terribly seriously.
...more

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May 11, 2008 Jessica rated it it was ok

Shelves: historical, turkey, non-fiction

Never caught fire for me - the meandering style made it too difficult to see the connections between people and places that make history interesting to me. I really wanted to like this one more, as I enjoy Goodwin's fiction tremendously.

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May 25, 2013 GoldGato rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, spring

From its beginnings as a nondescript tribe dwelling in the foothills of Anatolia to the dazzling victory over the Byzantines at Constantinople, the Empire of Osman (Ottoman) was the powerhouse of its day. It was an empire that adapted to the countries it overran, so that a day in the marketplace at Istanbul would find Turks, Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Jews, Serbs, Moors and others mingling together, regardless of race or language.

"There is a great difference between our loss and yours. You From its beginnings as a nondescript tribe dwelling in the foothills of Anatolia to the dazzling victory over the Byzantines at Constantinople, the Empire of Osman (Ottoman) was the powerhouse of its day. It was an empire that adapted to the countries it overran, so that a day in the marketplace at Istanbul would find Turks, Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Jews, Serbs, Moors and others mingling together, regardless of race or language.

"There is a great difference between our loss and yours. You have shaved our chin; but our beard is growing again. We have lopped off your arm, and you can never replace it."

The Ottomans suffered their first major loss against the Christian West at the Battle of Lepanto but managed to rebuild its navy and to continue its hold over the Balkans. The history of how the Ottomans took over the exotic identity of the Byzantines and made it their own is fascinating. The Empire was run as a corporation, focused on goals and metrics and organizational structure. Janissaries, harems, sibling rivalries make for enthralling history.

This volume is laid out as a three-act structure, with the beginning followed by the rise followed by the decline of the Empire. But as Goodwin showed in his other Istanbul-inspired book On Foot to the Golden Horn: A Walk to Istanbul, the delight in turning the pages here leads to finding little gems of history. For example, the croissant was created to commemorate the city bakers of Vienna who heard the Turks tunneling beneath the streets, thus sounding the alarm. Thus was born the bun shaped as a crescent (the symbol of the Ottomans). And then there's the footnote about the creation of the first cigarette, rolled by Ottoman gunners who had to replace their broken clay pipe.

The Ottoman vizier had the forts painted very white, to give his enemies the impression that they were all newly fitted up.

The last chapter of the book is an epilogue of sorts. For as long as the Turks had ruled over Istanbul, the mongrel dogs of the city were kings of the streets. Each dog belonged to a gang which in turn was part of a strictly-defined territory that other canine packs could not cross. The Ottomans accepted these mangy wolves as part of the divine plan, so human and dog tolerated each other. But when the end of World War I came, and the defeat of the Ottomans, the Sultan no longer had the power to prevent progress from seeping in, and the dogs were moved to an island. They could not return to their old kingdom, just as the Ottomans found theirs at an end.

Book Season = Spring (painted forts) ...more

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Oct 11, 2009 Lauren Albert rated it really liked it

Shelves: history-world, history-middle-east

One of the best written histories I 've read. Very writerly. I sometimes got lost in the names but that's not the fault of the book. It probably would have helped if I knew more about the subject though I wouldn't discourage someone from reading it because they didn't. 9/09

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Jan 03, 2013 Barbara Franklin rated it did not like it

I could not finish this book.

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Jul 04, 2011 David Berry rated it really liked it

Jason Goodwin, previously a travel writer and later a novelist, turned in a very successful history. Don't expect footnotes, historiography, or debates about what really happened. This isn't the history you read in college. It belongs to that nearly lost genre, literary history. Its purpose is to impress on the reader with the splendor, magnificence, and difference of bygone societies and personalities. This Goodwin does spectacularly.

I was lucky enough to read this book in Istanbul. These stra ...more

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May 30, 2013 Pete daPixie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history-ottoman

Almost seven hundred years of history here, and most of it completely new to me. 'Lords of the Horizons', published in 1998, chronicles the astonishing rise and fall of the Ottoman empire, from the late thirteenth century to the end of World War One.
From the birth of Osman Bey in 1281, which set a spark around the Sea of Marmara to engulf Byzantium in a Muslim fire that roared across the Dardanelles to the Adriatic, and in less than a century was consuming the Balkans. After Constantinople fell ...more

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Jul 14, 2015 Nazmul Hasan rated it it was ok

Shelves: recommend, historical-reflective

I'm so sorry for Mr. Goodwin. I'm sure the man honestly loves the ottomans. But apparently he doesn't love accurate research. There are several GLARING errors in this book. In addition, Goodwin mentions outlandish stories without even providing citations. It's amazing what lengths the author will go to shock or grab his readers attention. Apparently, coming up with a non-existent Quranic verse is one of these tactics (on pg. 55)
If you want to be entertained, do read this, but at the risk of also ...more

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Jan 27, 2017 Olethros rated it really liked it · review of another edition

-Tan especial como “especialito”.-

Género. Historia.

Lo que nos cuenta. Aproximación al Imperio Otomano, su historia, sus estructuras sociales y políticas, su auge, cénit y lento declive, a través de sus líderes y de los rumbos que marcaron sus ciudadanos para definir las peculiaridades tan llamativas de la idiosincrasia del imperio que permitieron tanto su grandeza como su caída.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

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Oct 31, 2009 David rated it it was amazing

The best short overview of the Ottomans I have read. Very lively and full of fascinating bits of information, it makes the rise and decline of the empire seem like an exciting romp, and is not without humour. The army had a regiment of madmen, for example, who were used as cannon fodder in the front line, ‘because they didn’t mind’. Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent fell in love with a blonde slave girl from the Caucasus called Roxana, and slept only with her until the day she died. Highly recomme ...more

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Feb 03, 2016 Ben rated it really liked it · review of another edition

There's something antiquated and romantic about the sprawling Ottoman Empire and its glacial decline through the centuries. It's what made Jason Goodwin's mystery novel "The Janissary Tree" so compelling. I wish I'd read this book first, though, as it provides much appreciated historical context to events, particularly the rise and fall of the janissary soldiers, which mirrored that of the samurai in Japan but ended much more violently.

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Aug 24, 2012 Tanya rated it liked it

Shelves: history, i-own-it, trip-preparation

I read this book as an introduction to the Ottoman Empire, and as such I found it disappointing. Goodwin's approach is journalistic rather than historical, and jumps from theme to theme without giving any sort of chronological framework in which to mentally organize the information. Because I felt somewhat muddled as I was reading, I know I won't retain as much, although what was presented was quite interesting.

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Mar 27, 2017 Sandra rated it did not like it

Shelves: not-worth-finishing

I really wanted to like this book, and, more importantly, to learn from it. The author, however, assumes that the reader has an intimate knowledge of the subject matter before coming to this... introductory book to the subject matter.

Worse, the writing oscillates between dull fact rambles and bordeline-racist stereotypical descriptions of a mystical 'other'. I am 100% sure there are better books on the Ottoman out there, and recommend finding those instead.

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Apr 09, 2013 victor harris rated it did not like it

Some interesting snippets, but very dry reading and lacks thematic unity. You plow through pages and ask " What is the point?" Suffers from a fatal flaw that is a familiar complaint about history writing - it is boring.

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Nov 28, 2017 Alvin rated it it was ok

A poorly written book on a fascinating subject. I kept having to read sentences twice to discern their meaning, and the liberal use of Turkish words and terms (not all of which were in the glossary) didn't help. And yet... every now and then there was a flash of perspicacity, or even wit, that elucidated something perfectly. Go figure! Anyway, the Ottoman's system of governance was thoroughly unique and it's easy to underestimate their empire's influence on the modern world.

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Oct 21, 2015 Antenna rated it it was ok

Apart from the obvious fact of being Islamic, the former Ottoman Empire is fascinating in its method of operating on very different lines from the rest of Europe. Instead of a power structure based on feudalism and inheritance, it developed the “boy tribute” system which took “the finest Christian youths” into the Sultan’s service, up to the level of the Grand Vizier. The problem of jockeying for the one position which did involve succession was solved by legal fratricide: the Sultan’s heir, the Apart from the obvious fact of being Islamic, the former Ottoman Empire is fascinating in its method of operating on very different lines from the rest of Europe. Instead of a power structure based on feudalism and inheritance, it developed the “boy tribute” system which took “the finest Christian youths” into the Sultan’s service, up to the level of the Grand Vizier. The problem of jockeying for the one position which did involve succession was solved by legal fratricide: the Sultan’s heir, the only person allowed to inherit, was permitted to order the murder of any scheming brothers who might seek to supplant him. The Ottomans did not seek to impose their culture on conquered groups, but simply to gain loyalty and tax revenues: the Chians were only forced to convert their churches to mosques after they had consistently failed to pay their dues. The detailed and pragmatic organisation which enabled the Turks’ remarkable success eventually made for a sclerotic Empire, “the Sick Man of Europe”, which collapsed after the First World War, leaving little lasting trace of the “centuries of peace and discretion” it had created.

Jason Goodwin is clearly very knowledgeable and passionate about the Ottomans, and his quirky style may help to convey a sense of their exoticism to Western eyes. “Western camps were babels of disorder, drunkenness and debauchery. The Ottoman camp was a tea party disturbed by nothing louder than the sound of mallet on tent peg, the camels’ cough, the bubbling of cauldrons filled with rice”. Some readers will love this style, but I was continually irked by the endless passages of hyperbole, the questionable assertions – “if Tartars made the best slavers, then Circassians unquestionably made the best slaves” - the rambling Old Testament-style lists of places and tribes, the continual, often abrupt switching around in time and topic, with a lack of clarity as to dates and the location of places. Instead of likening Constantinople to the head of a dog when explaining its land and sea defences in the siege of 1453, why not just supply a map – unpoetic, perhaps, but effective? Sometimes the book reads like notes on different subjects rapidly slotted together without much editing.

“Across the higher ranges of the Balkans lay a tangle of Vlachs (shepherds) – the limping Vlachs, Black Vlachs, Albano-Vlachs, Arumanians, the Sarakatsans who roamed deep into Anatolia; some who protested they were not Vlachs at all, and others who pretended to be Vlachs, and some who gave wickedness a country, Klephtouria, and some …….who were thought dirtier than anyone in the world, and one (according to Eliot in the late nineteenth century) who built himself a summer residence in the hills and proved so houseproud that he repaired a broken window with a new piece of glass instead of a sheet of brown paper, “a proceeding, I believe, unique in the Levant”. And this is just an extract from yet another lengthy piece of verbiage which left me wondering why on earth I was bothering to read it.

The author seems to have made a conscious attempt to break away from a conventional academic history and create a kind of verbal collage to provide a sense of the character of the Ottoman Empire, but for me it is too fragmented and incoherent. ...more

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Sep 30, 2012 Tahazen rated it liked it

Shelves: history

Writing something that is as expansive as the history of the Ottoman Empire in 300 pages is a difficult task. Goodwin attempts this by thematic chapters that give bite-size information in a digestible form -- but even this format is difficult to master. The themes are not necessarily chronological and there is a lot of bouncing around between different time periods that at times is difficult to organize. The prose the author conducts is sometimes poetic, but other times plodding.

I finished the ...more

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Mar 28, 2016 Ehsan rated it did not like it

The worst part of the book is that although the author has an understanding of Ottoman history but is totally oblivious of even the most basic concepts of islam wich makes the reading difficult as the ottoman history is interwoven with religion. for e.g the book states that shias follow the progeny of Hazrat Ali (RA), and sunnis follow the progeny of Hazrat Fatimah (RA). The author doesnt even seem to know that the progeny of both is the same.

Most of the incidents and events are qouted in bare ...more

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Jul 22, 2017 Mick Scheinin rated it it was ok

Would have benefited from thorough editing. Anecdotes repeated. Goodwin's love of language seems to have carried him away. Convoluted sentences and questionable adjectives. Sloppy. A travel writer's history.

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Mar 22, 2017 Chris Allan rated it it was ok

This was a maddening book. Not quite a popular history, more like a historical travel journal. Meandering through 600 years of Ottoman history. And I say history only because the later chapters talked (mostly) about things that happened later (mostly) than earlier chapters. It mixed beautiful evocations of past eras with countless non-sequitors and just plain head scratching sentences. Beautiful quips - "being Romanian was more a profession than a nationality" - that had nothing to do with the p ...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Saeed rated it did not like it

This was one of the worst books I've read in a long time. Goodwin should be ashamed of himself for writing this. It meanders through the years of the Ottoman empire where any given sentence might encapsulate 500 years of history in one blow. The prose itself is god awful. There is this heavy-handed assumption that he as a white Englishman knows best and the rest of us should have the knowledge that he possesses and doesn't seem to want to share with us. There are amusing anecdotes about the Otto ...more

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Apr 26, 2012 Barksdale Penick rated it really liked it

I picked up this 350 page history of the Ottoman Empire while I spent my honeymoon in Istanbul. Our author has a little problem with try to write history in memorable and precious turns of phrase: "Just the facts, Sir". But he has a lot of good facts and I learned a lot about this empire which burst out of the East to overlord most all of the middle east and Mediterranean. My favorite fact is the Sultan only received foreign dignitaries in profile. It is a pretty fascinating tale that could be c ...more

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Feb 14, 2017 Jack Ziegler rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: wheaton_library, history

I had a hard time with this book. I really wanted to like it. But, I guess I blame the style, it was hard to follow what was happening. Names and places and titles seemed like they were introduced and not really remarked on in the text. There is a nice glossary, but only about 1/2 of the words I checked for were included in it.

Maybe it is me, maybe I don't have the background needed to enjoy the book. I'm not sure. I was expecting more.

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Aug 14, 2015 Eressea rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 簡體書-simplified-chinese, 西洋史-history-of-western

雖然各章節間有連貫性
但各自拆開來看也是不錯的小品文
可是這讓書有點零碎
沒辦法很有系統的全面介紹帝國歷史
當然啦，那麼薄的書要全面介紹奧斯曼帝國的歷史
只怕會讓人更失望吧
中文標題翻得很到位，確實是"閑史"
作者醉心於古典時代的帝國
對十九世紀以降帝國救亡圖存的努力不是很讚賞
認為這些措施反而讓帝國失去活力
這到是挺有意思的一種觀點
BTW
難得看見簡體書會加註附原文的
這還是第一本
我才疏學淺也不知道這些註的質量如何
倒是74頁的註152說卡巴在今天的尼日
這也會出錯滿意外的...
就算加註的當下不知道卡巴在麥加
從原來頭銜裡卡巴與麥地那並列
也可以知道卡巴是指麥加的天房吧
這個錯挺離譜的

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Sep 30, 2011 Deb rated it it was ok

I want to understand this history. But, this book is just too detailed, too complicated. All of the names, battles, relationships, etc. are too foreign for me to take in all in one sitting. I need to find books about the various pieces, in shorter segments so that I can take it in. Actually, I need to buy this book so that I can read a chapter every now and then!

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About Jason Goodwin

Jason Goodwin

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Jason Goodwin's latest book is YASHIM COOKS ISTANBUL: Culinary Adventures in the Ottoman Kitchen.
He studied Byzantine history at Cambridge University - and returned to an old obsession to write The Gunpowder Gardens or, A Time For Tea: Travels in China and India in Search of Tea, which was shortlisted for the Thomas Cook Award. When the Berlin Wall fell, he walked from Poland to Istanbul to encoun ...more