The Ottoman Empire began in 1300 under the almost legendary Osman I, reached its apogee in the sixteenth century under Suleiman the Magnificent, whose forces threatened the gates of Vienna, and gradually diminished thereafter until Mehmed VI was sent into exile by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk). This text elaborates on the grand, audacious, and sometimes ruthless personalities involved, while keeping in focus the larger economic, political, and social issues.

The Ottoman Empire began in 1300 under the almost legendary Osman I, reached its apogee in the sixteenth century under Suleiman the Magnificent, whose forces threatened the gates of Vienna, and gradually diminished thereafter until Mehmed VI was sent into exile by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk). In this definitive history of the Ottoman Empire, Lord Kinross, painstaking historian and superb writer, never loses sight of the larger issues, economic, political, and social. At the same time he delineates his characters with obvious zest, displaying them in all their extravagance, audacity and, sometimes, ruthlessness.

Based on micro-level research of the District of Jerusalem, this book addresses some of the most crucial questions concerning the Ottoman empire in a time of crisis and disorientation: decline and decentralization, the rise of the notable elite, the urban-rural-pastoral nexus, agrarian relations and the encroachment of European economy. At the same time it paints a vivid picture of life in an Ottoman province. By integrating court record, petitions, chronicles and even local poetry, the book recreates a historical world that, though long vanished, has left an indelible imprint on the city of Jerusalem and its surroundings.

Render Unto the Sultan revolutionizes the way we think about Ottoman administration of non-Muslims, and seeks to avoid false impressions ranging from oppression and intolerance to equally false impressions of peaceful coexistence and harmony. By reading Greek Orthodox subjects into the Ottoman social and economic context, this volume challenges the received wisdom of the Ottoman 'Millet System', and fills the void by offering an alternative account ofchurch-state relations that are more in line with Ottoman methods of conquest and rule.

An analysis of Balkan Islam and the formation of one of the largest Muslim communities in the early-modern Ottoman Balkans.

"A work of dazzling beauty...the rare coming together of historical scholarship and curiosity about distant places with luminous writing." --The New York Times Book Review Since the Turks first shattered the glory of the French crusaders in 1396, the Ottoman Empire has exerted a long, strong pull on Western minds. For six hundred years, the Empire swelled and declined. Islamic, martial, civilized, and tolerant, in three centuries it advanced from the dusty foothills of Anatolia to rule on the Danube and the Nile; at the Empire's height, Indian rajahs and the kings of France beseeched its aid. For the next three hundred years the Empire seemed ready to collapse, a prodigy of survival and decay. Early in the twentieth century it fell. In this dazzling evocation of its power, Jason Goodwin explores how the Ottomans rose and how, against all odds, they lingered on. In the process he unfolds a sequence of mysteries, triumphs, treasures, and terrors unknown to most American readers. This was a place where pillows spoke and birds were fed in the snow; where time itself unfolded at a different rate and clocks were banned; where sounds were different, and even the hyacinths too strong to sniff. Dramatic and passionate, comic and gruesome, Lords of the Horizons is a history, a travel book, and a vision of a lost world all in one.