God's Shadow

Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World

De: Alan Mikhail

Narrado por: James Cameron Stewart

Long neglected in world history, the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor, geopolitical power, and enlightened pluralistic rule. At the height of their authority in the 16th century, the Ottomans controlled more territory and ruled over more people than any world power, forcing Europeans out of the Mediterranean and to the New World.

Yet, despite its towering influence and centrality to the rise of our modern world, the Ottoman Empire's history has for centuries been distorted, misrepresented, and even suppressed in the West. Now Alan Mikhail presents a vitally needed recasting of Ottoman history, retelling the story of the Ottoman conquest of the world through the dramatic biography of Sultan Selim I (1470-1520).

Mikhail's game-changing account uses Selim's life to upend prevailing shibboleths about Islamic history and jingoistic "rise of the West" theories that have held sway for decades. Whether recasting Christopher Columbus's voyages to the "Americas" as a bumbling attempt to slay Muslims or showing how the Ottomans allowed slaves to become the elite of society while Christian states at the very same time waged the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade, God's Shadow radically reshapes our understanding of the importance of Selim's Ottoman Empire in the history of the modern world.

©2020 Alan Mikhail (P)2020 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

A fascinating book

I learned a lot from this book easy-to-follow and a good story. This makes me look at European and US history in a new light.

A profound perspective of world history .

Some stories just grab your imagination and take it on a journey of profound experiential vision. This writing and narration has been such an illumination for me. Thank you!

Ignore the holier than thou shrieks

Fascinating and mind opening. If you like getting a single perspective of history written by the victors, this book is NOT for you. If you think that the Muslims were evil and Christians good, again just read todays main stream media. But if you looking for an interesting perspective, something to challenge that brain and beliefs of yours, a veil lifting book, this is for you!

Spectacular

Wonderful read! Deeply appreciated the global historical context and its' correlation to current ideologies.

Brilliant

I loved this book. I can’t recommend it enough. 10/10. We’ve talked about it non stop at our home.

Real history brought to life

I have over 2,200 books in my audible library and this is in the 1% of it. I learned so much about the modern world from the 15th century. The author needs to keep on coming with books. The writing style is beautiful.

A must read for any history addict

Totally addictive and fully captivating from beginning to end… Full of mind blowing facts and thought provoking information. Beautifully put together and soothingly read…

Well narrated

God’s Shadow is an informative book countervailing the lies of right wing islamophobes. The book illustrates the connections of history from the 16th century until today.

Spectacle, strong and clear delivering of storyline based on factual evidence one can corelate to.

Best thing that stands out is how that being unbiased and providing un-altered actual context without much of western bias standed most for me.
Being from former region of Ottomons I can feel it.

Incredibly in depth account

I’ll keep this short and sweet. Some of this is some perspective changing accounts of the histories of the Mediterranean and the Americas. However, specially towards the end of the book, he was making some strong leaps to connect certain ideas. The book is worth the read or listen and gives an excellent account of Selim’s life. The book was really good and entertaining. The audiobook reader was infuriating to listen to at points because of his random inflection on certain words. If you’re debating on buying this book, I strongly encourage you to do so. The complaints are minor and keep in mind that the author is very much interested in the Ottomans and will seem biased at points. This does not necessarily discredit him but just keep this idea in mind because it’s important to understand the author as well as the book for a complete understanding.