A short history of the Ottoman Empire

The conduit - of people, ideas and commerce - between Europe and Asia for more than six centuries, the Ottoman imperium had by 1590 become one of the most powerful states in the world, expanding territorially and threatening Vienna in the West and wresting Baghdad from the Persians in the East.

The story of its struggles against Byzantines (culminating in the shattering fall of Constantinople in 1453), Hungarians and Habsburgs is one of the defining narratives of European history.

Showing why understanding the Ottomans, especially the important shared heritage of the Balkans and Anatolia, still matter, Baki Tezcan discusses the formation of the Ottoman state at the end of the thirteenth century; Ottoman genius under enlightened sultan Suleyman the Magnificent; military victories such as at Constantinople and Belgrade, and defeats on sea and land at Lepanto (1571) and Vienna.

This timely survey explores government, economy, trade, religion and the arts up to the founding of modern Turkey in 1922.