Ottoman Centuries

Step into the enigmatic world of "The Ottoman Empire" a compelling exploration of the rise, zenith, and eventual decline of one of the most formidable empires in history. This meticulously researched account takes listeners on a captivating journey through the annals of time, unraveling the intricate tapestry of a civilization that spanned over six centuries.

In 1683, an Ottoman army that stretched from horizon to horizon set out to seize the "Golden Apple," as Turks referred to Vienna. The ensuing siege pitted battle-hardened Janissaries wielding seventeenth-century grenades against Habsburg armies, widely feared for their savagery. The walls of...

In 1520, a twenty-six-year-old prince inherited the most powerful empire on Earth. Over the next forty-six years, he would conquer Belgrade, Rhodes, Hungary, and Baghdad. His navy would dominate the Mediterranean. His legal code would govern millions for three centuries. His architects would build monuments that still stand today. His people called him "Kanuni"—the Lawgiver. Europeans called him "the Magnificent." Suleiman the Magnificent tells the complete story of the Ottoman Empire's greatest ruler—from the siege of Vienna to the love affair that scandalized his court, from the ...

In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the fourth century, when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there, effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity’s greatest empire.

Augustine Sforza was trained to see the truth in a face — the weight of a jaw, the doubt behind a stare, the exact place where confidence ends and fear begins. In Rome, that gift made him the talk of the city, courted by cardinals and within reach of the one commission every painter in Italy would kill for. It did not save him the night an old rivalry finally came to a head, and he was left with a choice no artist should have to make. Exiled from the only city he's ever loved, Augustine is meant to disappear quietly into the Mediterranean and wait out his sentence. The sea has other plans...

How did Turkish change across the centuries? How did the language of early Central Asian Turkic communities develop into later literary and historical forms, and eventually into the Turkish spoken and written today? The History of Turkish is a rigorous yet readable college-level introduction to the historical development of Turkish across major stages of its evolution. Written entirely in English, this book guides readers through Old Central Asian Turkish, Thirteenth-Century Turkish, Seventeenth-Century Turkish, and Modern Turkish with clear explanations, carefully selected examples, and ...

By revolutionizing and modernizing Russian arms, including the creation of Russia’s first naval force, Peter was able to pursue an aggressive and expansionist foreign policy that set the stage for the way the European map would be redrawn again and again over the coming centuries. Some of those forays were memorably countered by Western Europeans and the Holy League, but the Ottomans’ most frequent foe was the Russian Empire, which opposed them for both geopolitical and religious reasons.

The Ottoman Empire was at the height of its power during the 16th century when Cecilia Baffo Veniero was kidnapped from her Venetian homeland and chosen to be the wife of Selim II, successor to Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. She would be known as Nurbanu. The Mapmaker's Daughter vividly imagines the confession of Nurbanu as she lies on her sickbed narrating the spectacular story of her rise to the pinnacle of imperial power, determined to understand how her extraordinary destiny was shaped. 

Looking forward to the joys of connubial bliss, newlyweds Lady Emily and Colin Hargreaves, diplomats of the British Empire, set out toward Turkey for an exotic honeymoon. But on their first night in the city, a harem girl is found murdered, strangled in the courtyard of the Sultan's lavish Topkapi Palace. Sir Richard St. Clare, an Englishman who works at the embassy in Constantinople, is present and recognizes the girl as his own daughter who was kidnapped twenty years earlier. Emily and Colin promise the heartbroken father that they'll find her killer.

Two souls. Countless lifetimes. One unbreakable bond that not even time can sever In My Family Is Everything, the author takes readers on a captivating journey through time, destiny, and enduring love. This instalment of the Mea Promissa Patria series introduces a new era and a new cast of characters, yet returns to the same profound theme: the unbreakable bonds of a soul family. Set in the heart of the medieval Ottoman Empire, the story follows Sarah, whose soul has been reborn into a new life as a man. Taken from his family as a boy and raised as a janissary, he comes to be known as ...

Inside, you will hear about the history of the Ottoman empire, including: origins until the Balkan conquests; institutions and society: millets, guilds, trade, religion, and mysticism; 15th-century imperial style, 16th-century Golden Age, cracks before World War I; the Eastern Question; and much more!

"Christopher de Bellaigue has a magic talent for writing history. It is as if we are there as the era of Suleyman the Magnificent unfolds." —Orhan Pamuk, Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Narrated through the eyes of the intimates of Suleyman the Magnificent, the sixteenth-century...

Step into a gripping military history where imperial hubris and catastrophic blunders birthed the modern medical era. Perfect for your daily commute, this intense narrative sweeps from opulent European courts to the disease-ridden trenches of the Black Sea. Witness how a provincial religious...

He refused Theodor Herzl twice. He sent his fleet to the bottom of the harbor rather than surrender it to Europe. He ruled thirty million people for thirty-three years while the world tried to take his empire apart — piece by piece, crisis by crisis, deal by deal. Sultan Abdul Hamid II was the last Ottoman ruler who governed with real, undivided power. He inherited an empire already hemorrhaging territory and money. He was handed a state in the middle of a war it was losing. And for three decades, he held it together — through intelligence networks, through the Caliphal diplomacy that ...

The world-changing story of Turkey—a country caught between two worlds This brilliant distillation traces Turkey's long and complicated history from the rise and decline of the Ottoman Empire—the most enduring, and perhaps the most important, Islamic empire in history—to the emergence of...

From a small Turkish principality to a global superpower, the Ottoman Empire’s role in world history is certainly undeniable. For over six centuries, the empire was arguably the world’s strongest Muslim empire, dominating its rivals in Europe and Asia for many years.

In 1517, the Ottoman Sultan Selim "the Grim" conquered Egypt and brought his empire for the first time in history into direct contact with the trading world of the Indian Ocean. During the decades that followed, the Ottomans became progressively more engaged in the affairs of this vast and previously unfamiliar region, eventually to the point of launching a systematic ideological, military and commercial challenge to the Portuguese Empire, their main rival for control of the lucrative trade routes of maritime Asia.

In Crucible of Light, Elizabeth Drayson pulls together the epic interwoven history of the Muslim and Christian worlds over an 800-year span, taking in the conquest and re-conquest of Spain, the meteoric rise of Arabo-Norman Sicily, the Ottoman renaissance of the 16th to 18th centuries, the ebb...

Over the course of just 200 years, the Ottoman Empire grew from a small, obscure Anatolian state into the most powerful Muslim nation in the world, controlling vast swathes of the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and North Africa. Within the empire, science, medicine, technology, and art flourished, and the Ottoman army became one of the most feared and efficient fighting forces in existence. Then came a period of gradual decline.

Rethinking the history of the last thirteen centuries, in Crucible of Light, Elizabeth Drayson pulls together the epic interwoven history of the Muslim and Christian worlds. ‘Absolutely fascinating. At a time when a historical Christian Nationalism and chauvinism are gaining ground, this book...