At the turn of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire straddled three continents and encompassed extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity among the millions of people living within its borders. This text provides a concise history of the late empire between 1789 and 1918, turbulent years marked by incredible social change.

'A tour de force of accessible scholarship' The Guardian 'Impressive ... It is a complicated story that still reverberates, and Gingeras narrates it with lucid authority' New Statesman The Ottoman Empire had been one of the major facts in European history since the Middle Ages. Stretching from the Adriatic to the Indian Ocean, the Empire was both a great political entity and a religious one, with the Sultan ruling over the Holy Sites and, as Caliph, the successor to Mohammed. Yet the Empire's fateful decision to support Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914 doomed it to disaster, breaking it up into a series of European colonies and what emerged as an independent Saudi Arabia. Ryan Gingeras's superb new book explains how these epochal events came about and shows how much we still live in the shadow of decisions taken so long ago. Would all of the Empire fall to marauding Allied armies, or could something be saved? In such an ethnically and religiously entangled region, what would be the price paid to create a cohesive and independent new state? The story of the creation of modern Turkey is an extraordinary, bitter epic, brilliantly told here.

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire is a key event in the shaping of our own times. From its ruins rose a whole map of new countries including Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the perennially troubled area of Palestine as well as the Balkan lands - states which were to remain flashpoints of international tension. This thoughtful and lucid volume considers the reasons for the end of the Ottoman Empire; explains the course of it; and examines the aftermath.

The name "Ottoman" was coined from the chieftain (or "Bey") called Osman, who declared independence from the Seljuk Turks. This beautiful book takes you through the captivating rise and fall of the powerful Ottoman dynasty, from its origins to its inception as a world power that served as a turning point in the history of North Africa, Southeast Europe, the Middle East, and even the rest of the world.

This skillfully written text presents the full sweep of Ottoman history from its beginnings on the Byzantine frontier in about 1300, through its development as an empire, to its late eighteenth-century confrontation with a rapidly modernizing Europe. Itzkowitz delineates the fundamental institutions of the Ottoman state, the major divisions within the society, and the basic ideas on government and social structure. Throughout, Itzkowitz emphasizes the Ottomans' own conception of their historical experience, and in so doing penetrates the surface view provided by the insights of Western observers of the Ottoman world to the core of Ottoman existence.

Yaron Ayalon explores the Ottoman Empire's history of natural disasters and its responses on a state, communal, and individual level.

"A remarkably readable, judicious and well-researched account" (Financial Times) of World War I in the Middle East By 1914 the powers of Europe were sliding inexorably toward war, and they pulled the Middle East along with them into one of the most destructive conflicts in human history. In The Fall of the Ottomans, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan brings the First World War and its immediate aftermath in the Middle East to vivid life, uncovering the often ignored story of the region's crucial role in the conflict. Unlike the static killing fields of the Western Front, the war in the Middle East was fast-moving and unpredictable, with the Turks inflicting decisive defeats on the Entente in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and Gaza before the tide of battle turned in the Allies' favor. The postwar settlement led to the partition of Ottoman lands, laying the groundwork for the ongoing conflicts that continue to plague the modern Arab world. A sweeping narrative of battles and political intrigue from Gallipoli to Arabia, The Fall of the Ottomans is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the Great War and the making of the modern Middle East.