THE OTTOMANS: KHANS, CAESARS AND CALIPHS (B PB) Paperback – 10 November 2022

The media could not be loaded. Packaging was very neat, book was in great condition ! Binding seems really strong, I encourage everyone to buy this book !

The Ottoman Empire is a constant source of fascination for me-the collapse of that Empire led to independence for so many nations, and I don’t really know as much as I want to about the reach of the Empire, and its legacy. Baer is a perfect chronicler of all the complexities of describing an Empire that lasted 5 centuries and encompassed multiple nations. Along with the Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Prussian Empires, the Ottoman Empire was one of the great empires that collapsed after WWI, but popular narratives don’t discuss it as much, or its contributions to the world, apart from the depictions of the Empire as the barbaric Other, existing in isolation and featuring as the constant enemy (Kirstin Downey’s book on Isabella la Catolica, constantly describes attacks on Spain by Vikings in terms of ‘settling’ and ‘expansion’, but uses terms like ‘barbaric slaughter’, ‘violent attack’ , and invasions, to describe attacks by the Moorish Empire). This is a perspective Baer wants to show is incorrect, and that this was as vibrant and diverse as the others, with its own arts and culture, that in turn influenced art in other places.The book is structured really well: Baer divides the historical periods loosely depending on the character of that period in Ottoman history and gives you an introduction to that, explaining the main themes of the period, before delving deeper into every monarch in that particular time. I loved Christophe de Bellaigue’s book on SUleyman the Magnificent, but I wanted more detail on how exactly he Empire was administered, given the diversity of ethnicities, and languages, and this book gave me that, and more. The Ottomans more or less followed the model of the Roman Empire, with provinces governed by Ottoman administrators, and the option of advancing your fortunes if you converted to Islam ( exactly the model followed by Constantine and his successors, that led to the spread of Christianity in Europe). The Ottoman Emperors made success and belonging as a citizen of the Empire contingent on Islam, which that meant that anyone, regardless of ethnicity, nationality, language, could rise through the ranks in the court, diplomacy, business or the military. Analogously, in Europe at the time, it would be much more rare to have several courtiers, or army leaders, or businessmen, whose language and ethnicity were completely different-there was an odd Eugene of Savoy , of course, in the Hapsburg Court, but this was a lot more commonplace in the Ottoman Empire.He also explains the quite unique Janissary guard, formed entirely of children taken from conquered provinces, trained in Istanbul to be the Emperor’s elite fighting force. Apart from the life of the Emperors, Baer shows you how daily life and trade were conducted, and evolved, and rebellions quelled-the story of Sabbatai Zvi was one of the most interesting historical episodes I’ve read.I did not know just how integrated the Ottoman Empire was with Europe, with regards to trade and military campaigns ( I didn’t know, for instance, that the Ottoman Army and Navy were one of the allies of the British in Nelson’s Egyptian campaign, the French and Ottomans had a military alliance for nearly two and a half centuries, the Ottoman troops wintering in Marseille during a campaign, the Ottomans were a major part of the Crimean War, though they’re not mentioned at all ). When accounts are written of seafaring nations, the Ottomans aren’t mentioned-though they should have been, and there are excellent chapters on the Ottoman Navy.The centuries before the 2 World Wars had seen constant upheavals and battles in Europe, and an integral part in the balance of power was the Ottoman Empire-regarded as a balancing power when it was expedient. There were constant cultural exchanges, trade, military alliances all of which the Empire very much was a part, right from the times of the Renaissance. The Ottomans were one of the main allies of Elizabeth I, against King Philip’s Spain, and there were ambassadors to the empire-Marlowe’s play, Tamburlaine, was influenced by these socio-political developments, and Bayezid, the Ottoman Sultan defeated by Tamburlaine is one of the tragic rulers in the play. Elizabeth 1 corresponded with the mother of the Sultan as well. Lew Wallace, the writer of Ben Hur, for instance, was America’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, and was such a close confidant of Sultan Abdulhamid that he was asked to stay back even after his term ended as an adviser! ( he was tempted to, but returned to America because he missed his home). An interesting aspect Baer brings up is that Protestantism got a fillip from Ottoman military victories-Protestant leaders lobbied for more privileges ( and got them too), given the supposed Islamic threat!Baer’s interests include the intersection of Judaism and the Ottoman Empire- He explains the Ottoman policy of toleration of other religions-different from secularism where religions are equal, the policy of toleration followed meant that everyone could follow their religions, and build their places of worship, but accept that they could only rise to a certain extent, and not beyond that. While this sounds harsh from a 21st Century perspective, for several millennia of human history, there was a State religion-mosques couldn’t be built in Europe in the Middle Ages, for instance, and Jews weren’t even allowed to live in several parts of Europe and Russia, and were exiled from Spain as well, after the Reconquista. Many settled in the Ottoman Empire, and their businesses flourished.The Ottomans faced several internal rebellions, several of them by Sufi preachers-a fact I found interesting because Erdogan’s crackdown and tightening of security in Turkey in the 2000s also happened, ostensibly, because of a preacher, Gullen. The Empire derived legitimacy in its foundational stages with the blessing of Sufi preachers, but they also posed a threat to a monarchy, as they could be an alternate centre of power, since they also functioned on a cult of personality. I never quite knew why so many Sufi centres had been banned, I only knew vaguely that they were, and this book explains a lot.While the Empire wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t really the ignorant, regressive backwater that’s the popular view. How did an Empire that seemed to embrace diversity to this extent then end up losing the plot? Since the Empire was a part of Europe, developments elsewhere affected this monarchy to the same extent, and Baer expertly chronicles the rise of ethno-nationalism in the late 18th and 19th centuries, that saw a surge in similar sentiments in the Ottoman Empire as well-the irony being that some of the Young Turks who espoused a Turkish identity over an Ottoman one, based on Islam, were born in parts of Greece. One of my favourite books was Eugene Rogan’s End of the Ottomans, and this book shows how all the previous centuries led up to that. Baer also has a detailed account on the Armenian Genocide, and traces the origins of the Kurdish conflict to Ottoman policies. ( an interesting anecdote he has of the time is the Ottoman Sultan, during the Armenian Genocide, asking Theodor Herzl to give them some good PR in the European press, knowing of his sympathies to the Ottoman Empire, as a place of refuge for several Jewish refugees. Herzl complied-another example showing that history is nuanced, and complicated, and human ebings can behave in unexpected ways).Baer effectively shows that narratives of a clash of civilisations, with millennia of conflict between supposedly Christian civilisations and Islamic civilisations, that have come into vogue over the last half a century, really aren’t true. History cannot be explained through such simplistic binaries, and requires more nuanced consideration and narratives, to arrive at a proper understanding of cause and effect. I cannot recommend this book enough.

There are better history of Ottomans written. Choose them than this book. The writing is not that great and the content is all over the place, lacking any core theme.