The history books I most enjoy are those that tell me about events of which I knew little or nothing, and want to learn more.
One such event was the fall of Smyrna (now Izmir) in western Turkey in 1922. As the Ottoman Empire collapsed at the end of World War I, Greek troops occupied the multicultural city of Smyrna. After three years, Turkish nationalist forces led by Kemal Ataturk forces re-entered the city, setting its buildings on fire and killing up to 100,000 of its Greek, Armenian, and other inhabitants in an act of what is now called ethnic cleansing.
Giles Milton recalls this horrific tragedy, focusing on the cosmopolitan merchants who had made their wealth there as well as on the many poor people who lost their lives or fled into exile.
On Saturday 9th September, 1922, the victorious Turkish cavalry rode into Smyrna, the richest and most cosmopolitan city in the Ottoman Empire. What happened over the next two weeks must rank as one of the most compelling human dramas of the twentieth century. Almost two million people were caught up in a disaster of truly epic proportions.
PARADISE LOST is told with the narrative verve that has made Giles Milton a bestselling historian. It unfolds through the memories of the survivors, many of them interviewed for the first time, and the eyewitness accounts of those who found themselves caught up…
I live in Dublin, Ireland and am the author of eleven novels, many of them Irish bestsellers, all of them translated into foreign languages, most of them also published in the US by St Martin’s Press. A lawyer by profession, I gave up my law practice to concentrate on writing fiction, beginning with an historical novel Whispers in the Wind which was a No. 1 Irish bestseller. History is my passion.
This is a little historical gem. The author was the wife of the British consul to Constantinople in 1718 and wrote copious letters home detailing her travels and her life in the Ottoman Empire’s capital. She describes the exoticism, the requirement that women be veiled in public (which she saw as freeing), the sumptuous jewels and wealth, the admiration of pregnant women (and the pressure to be pregnant to prove you were still young).
Her description of smallpox ‘parties’ is particularly interesting. These gatherings were held annually to inoculate children by using a tiny amount of smallpox pus scratched into the forearm. A survivor of smallpox herself, Mary had her own small son successfully inoculated and brought the knowledge back with her to England, but it was not until Edward Jenner introduced a vaccine later in the century that a treatment became more widely known.
The critical and biographical introduction tells of Lady Wortley Montagu's travels through Europe to Turkey in 1716, where her husband had been appointed Ambassador. Her lively letters offer insights into the paradoxical freedoms conferred on Muslim women by the veil, the value of experimental work by Turkish doctors on inoculation, and the beauty of Arab poetry and culture.
The ability to study another culture according to its own values and to see herself through the eyes of others makes Lady Mary one of the most fascinating of early travel writers and commentators
Queer fantasy for the win! (You'll notice this is a subgenre I often like.) This novel has court intrigue with plenty of intelligence, but also a slow-burn romance with plenty of swoon, in what I consider the perfect proportions. It's also got a touch of magic, giving its fantasy country some extra spice. The characters kept surprising me in delightful ways—the seemingly cowardly prince showing his ferocity at some moments, and the stoic bodyguard/soldier coming through with his tender side. I was cheering for their blossoming love while also genuinely invested in the mystery of who was trying to infiltrate and destroy the kingdom. I'm excited to read more from Rowland!
A sweeping fantasy romance inspired by the Ottoman Empire, A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland is perfect for fans of A Marvellous Light and The Goblin Emperor.
'A delicious tangle of romance, fealty and dangerous politics' - Tasha Suri, author of The Jasmine Throne
One false coin could topple an empire.
Kadou, the shy prince of Arasht, has no intention of wrestling for imperial control with his sister, the queen. Yet he remains at odds with one of the most powerful ambassadors at court - the father of the queen's new child. Then a hunting party goes…
I'm a historian who teaches strategic studies at the National Defense University and Georgetown University in Washington, DC. I'm fascinated by how we write and teach history, how we interpret it, and how we use it. To use history, we have to “get it right,” but we also have to think about how the past impacts the present. One of the foremost challenges confronting historians is how to write the history of their particular subject well while making it applicable (and interesting) more universally. The following books are all particular to the region I study most closely—the Eastern Mediterranean—but their grasp of humanity is profound. Their power and perspectives ring true across millennia.
This book is an extraordinary synthesis of half a century of history (c. 1520-1571) as European powers and the Ottoman Empire fought for control of the Mediterranean Sea. Empires of the Sea focuses on a number of momentous military engagements, the Siege of Rhodes (1522), the Siege of Malta (1565), the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus (1570-1), and the Battle of Lepanto (1571). Crowley writes like an artist evoking the colors and textures of the brilliant seventeenth-century amid a world of emperors, sultans, popes, and pirates. He manages to capture both the extraordinary individuals who shaped momentous events through their personalities and the broader historical trends that led to the defeat of Ottoman expansion during the 16th century and shaped the contours of Europe as we know it today.
Empires of the Sea shows the Mediterranean as a majestic and bloody theatre of war. Opening with the Ottoman victory in 1453 it is a breathtaking story of military crusading, Barbary pirates, white slavery and the Ottoman Empire - and the larger picture of the struggle between Islam and Christianity. Coupled with dramatic set piece battles, a wealth of riveting first-hand accounts, epic momentum and a terrific denouement at Lepanto, this is a work of history at its broadest and most compelling.
I am fascinated by how societies conduct war. Who is expected to fight, and how are they organized? How is technology developed, implemented, and improvised in the heat of battle? And, most importantly, how do its participants make sense of the carnage around them? History is replete with tales of savagery and courage, of honor and depravity. Perilously few of these have been formed into novels, leaving an incomplete and disjointed understanding of thousands of years of struggle. Many authors, including those listed here, paved the path for holistic depictions of historical battle fiction – my hope is to contribute tales from oft-neglected societies, beginning with Belisarius and the 6th-Century Roman Empire.
The Great Siege of Malta – a nearly four-month struggle in 1565, should be essential for any military historian to understand. Sadly, its treatment in fiction has been ludicrously underserved.
Enter Ironfire. Mr. Ball’s work builds slowly, showing the reader how various elements of the Ottoman Army (the Janissaries, in particular) were acquired, trained, and readied for war. Likewise, a failing legacy of crusade, as well as a decline in support for religious military orders, plague Christian leadership in Malta. Ball’s ‘slow burn’ narrative ignites into the island’s famous siege by a massive and well-equipped Ottoman army, facing a motley band of knights and Maltese locals reliant upon blades and fire to desperately hold their walls. Ironfire is a master class on premodern siege warfare in fiction.
From the acclaimed author of Empires of Sand comes a mesmerizing new adventure that Jean Auel cites as “crowded with events that both forecast and mirror the conflicts of today.” Sweeping from the drawing rooms of Paris to the palace of Suleiman the Magnificent to the dark hold of a slave ship racing across the sea, here is a dazzling story of love and valor, innocence and identity, an epic novel of the clash of civilizations on a barren island where the future was forged.
The Mediterranean, the sixteenth century: Lying squarely in the midst of the vital sea lanes…
I am a Scottish Ottoman historian who has lived half my life in Istanbul. Realising that the archive-based research of my PhD and after was read by too few, I wrote Osman's Dream, which has been translated into several languages and is read generally, as well as by students. I am fascinated by the 'where' of history, and follow historical routes the slow way, by foot or on horseback, to reach the sites where events occurred. That's the thing about living where the history you study happened: its traces and artefacts are all around, every day. I hope I have brought a sense of Ottoman place to Osman's Dream.
This lavishly-illustrated volume takes a broad look at Ottoman culinary culture, holding up a mirror to the empire as reflected in the food and foodways of its people, from sultans to commoners. It offers a sweeping panorama of the evolution of culinary traditions that drew on the practices of the many societies inhabiting the Ottoman lands. The author lives in and travels widely in Turkey, encountering dishes that have ancient roots and finding food-related customs that survive until the present day. This is no book of recipes, but a compendium of richer food for thought.
The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and longest-lasting empires in history. In this powerful and complex empire, the production and consumption of food reflected the lives of people from sultans to soldiers. Food bound people of different classes and background together, defining identity and serving symbolic functions in the social, religious, political and military spheres. Bountiful Empire: A History of Ottoman Cuisine examines the foodways of the Ottoman Empire as they changed and evolved over more than five centuries. The book starts with an overview of the earlier culinary traditions in which Ottoman cuisine was rooted, such as…
I enjoyed this story for several reasons. First and foremost, reading this series makes me feel closer to my dear mother-in-law who passed away in 2009. She loved Dunnet!
I hadn’t read anything by this author until I started reading this series. Each book opens a new world to me, whether in Scotland or England or France, with the history of the place and the people brought vividly to life.
Secondly, I’m enjoying the series because Dunnet has such a wonderful way with language and storytelling that I find her writing beautiful and elegant and often tongue-in-cheek funny. This historical fiction is entertaining as well as educational.
Combining all the political intrigue of Game of Thrones with the sweeping romanticism of Outlander, Dorothy Dunnett’s legendary Lymond Chronicles have enthralled readers for decades and amassed legions of devoted fans. In this fourth book in the series, Francis Crawford of Lymond embarks on a desperate and deadly journey in search of his kidnapped child.
Somewhere within the bejeweled labyrinth of the Ottoman Empire, a little boy is hidden. Now his father, Francis Crawford of Lymond, soldier of fortune and the exiled heir of Scottish nobility, is searching for him while ostensibly engaged on a mission to the Turkish Sultan.…
Emrah Sahin is a specialist in the history of religious interactions and international operations in Islam and Muslim-Christian relations. He received a Ph.D. from McGill University, a Social Science and Humanities Research Award from Canada, the Sabancı International Research Award from Turkey, and the Teacher of the Year Award from the University of Florida. He is currently with the University of Florida as a board member in Global Islamic Studies, an affiliate in History, a lecturer in European Studies, a college-wide advisor, and the coordinator of the federal Global Officer program.
Politicization of Islam is a tour de force of the late Ottoman landscape wherein religions became politics in reaction to perceptions and interventions made by Europeans (British, French, and Russian). I enjoy this book because it is an authentic and non-orientalist look at the roots of the Islamist lifeworld.
Combining international and domestic perspectives, this book analyzes the transformation of the Ottoman Empire over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It views privatization of state lands and the increase of domestic and foreign trade as key factors in the rise of a Muslim middle class, which, increasingly aware of its economic interests and communal roots, then attempted to reshape the government to reflect its ideals.
I'm professor in the Department of Eastern Christian Studies at University College Stockholm and president of The Institute for the Study of Culture and Christianity. I focus primarily on human freedom and creativity, which I explore as aesthetic, socio-political, and existentially relevant phenomena. I've been teaching and publishing in the domains of visual arts, art history and theory, but also in religion/theology and political philosophy.
Well, there’s an obvious reason, I was born in Travnik, a small town in the very heart of Bosnia and Hercegovina. Despite being a small place, it is immensely important—especially if you ask people who were born and raised there ☺
This book is a novel by one of the greatest European writers of the mid-twentieth century, Ivo Andrić, and it is one (of two) of his best novels. Apart from being written in a beautiful and unique (“Andrić’s”) style, it is also one of the best resources for understanding the cultural, social, and religious dynamic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, not only during the Ottoman times. If one wishes to get an insight into the culture and “mentality” of the people who traditionally inhabited the region, Chronicles of Travnik (often, curiously enough, translated into English as Bosnian Chronicle) can serve better than most sociological studies. It’s better, of course,…
For as long as anyone can remember, the little cafe known as 'Lutvo's' has stood at the far end of the Travnik bazaar.
In the remote town of Travnik, the newly appointed French consul soon finds himself intriguing against his Austrian rival, whilst dealing with a colourful cast of Bosnian notables, Orthodox priests, Jewish merchanges and Muslim farmers.
As a wannabe rockstar studying philosophy and mathematics, never in my wildest nightmare did I imagine I would one day earn a living traveling the world, helping corporate managers become better bosses. But in unexpected ways, all the different strands of my interests and passions have woven together into a work-life well lived, with over two decades of experience and contemplation distilled down into this book I have co-written with my friend and business partner, Bjorn Billhardt, CEO of Abilitie.
This book is so many things at once. It’s a history of management education. It’s a damning indictment of the consulting world. It’s an acerbic memoir of life as a consultant that had me laughing out loud.
But what resonated most with me is that it’s also a profound and rigorous argument for why business schools are not the right place to learn about management and that the traditional liberal arts give you more skills and mental models for assuming responsibility for leading an organization.
Fresh from Oxford with a degree in philosophy and no particular interest in business, Matthew Stewart might not have seemed a likely candidate to become a consultant. But soon he was telling veteran managers how to run their companies.
In narrating his own ill-fated (and often hilarious) odyssey at a top-tier firm, Stewart turns the consultant's merciless, penetrating eye on the management industry itself. The Management Myth offers an insightful romp through the entire history of thinking about management, a withering critique of pseudoscience in management theory, and a clear explanation of why the MBA usually amounts to so much…
