The Ottoman Empire 1326–1699 (Essential Histories, 62)

GREAT BACKGROUND INFORMATION REQUIRED TO UNDERSTAND LEIRGER PICTURE THEN AND NOW

This is another great book in the Essential History series. One point that sticks out is that Stephen Turnbull clearly and concisely pulled together over 300 years of Ottoman history. The obvious shortcoming is the fact that many battles are given only a brief description. The reader is left wanting more. Given the size limitation of Osprey books, however, there is really no way to overcome this minor shortcoming. If more attention were given to one battle, then something else would have to be taken out. The book contains some notable bits of information that the average reader will find fascinating. The activities of Vlad Dracul, the Impaler, are particularly interesting. The author does a splendid job of describing the real life activities of the man who became the literary inspiration for Count Dracula, the vampire. The history of the Empire is told in chronological order. Thus, it is easy to follow. The author also expands on certain topics by devoting two chapters to a Serbian janissary and a civilian Grand Vizier. This adds a unique perspective and prevents the book from becoming nothing more than a list of battles. Bottom line: the author achieved his goal of writing a brief account of the Ottoman Empire, its battles, and the associated political motivations. This is no small feat given the expansive period covered. The book is a great reference on a part of history that is rarely taught in school.

Pretty good history book as is expected from Stephen Turnbull

great

This is a short history of the Ottoman Empire. Even though I have other histories of the Ottoman Empire, I still learned a great deal from reading this short history by Stephen Turnbull.

The book is great if you are looking for a general view and history of the Ottoman Empire. It is a short book so don't expect every detail of the Ottomans being here. It has only the major events with brief description of those events.

Dates and names are informative, adding places allows one to be able to recognize how closely tied are the events at this time frame are to events in the current time frame. Very informative for those (like me) who are not knowledgeable of history and how it does what some say "it is repeated".

Quite a lazy and incompetent attempt at an overview of history during this time period. For example, on pg. 19. " Christian boys...were selected... as tribute children...trained...and converted (often willingly) to Islam." What a farce! This was known as a "blood tribute" where young boys were ripped from mothers and fathers and led like cattle to live in unbearable living conditions, to include sleep and food depravation, sexual abuse, and slave like conditions. To portray this heinous act of slavery and barbarism as something cool to be selected for is one of the numerous poor and inaccurate accounts of history in this book. Recommend Sword and Scimitar (Ibrahim) for a more accurate and better researched account of this time period.

If like me your knowledge of the rise of the Ottoman Empire is minimal, then this book is sufficient.

Everything should be there but something is missing. The Ottomans were for a time one of the greatest empires on earth, during the time when Europe was in her middle ages. They rose to power after the Christian Crusades and were for a time the greatest enemy of Christians. Their armies layed siege to Vienna twice and there fleet ruled a large part of the Mediterainian. And amongst the warriors of the time their Jannisaries were elite. Somehow this book fails to convay the majesty of the Ottomans and its cronological order is somehow difficult to follow. Funnily enough the pictures in the book normaly appear on the wrong page in context with the main text. In the few places it becomes interesting it stops short and leaves you loning for more. It does however present a skelital outline of the Ottoman Empire over the specific timeperiod in a fairly short book and could help in giving a wider prespective on Ottoman history. Sadly it just isn't very good.

Not enough depth