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The Ottomans
- Khans, Caesars and Caliphs
- Narrated by: Jamie Parker
- Length: 17 hrs and 30 mins
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The Ottomans
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Summary
A major new history of the 600-year dynasty that connected East to West as never before.
The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic Asian antithesis of the Christian European West. But the reality was starkly different: the Ottomans' multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious domain reached deep into Europe's heart. In their breadth and versatility, the Ottoman rulers saw themselves as the new Romans.
Recounting the Ottomans' remarkable rise from a frontier principality to a world empire, Marc David Baer traces their debts to their Turkish, Mongolian, Islamic and Byzantine heritage, how they used both religious toleration and conversion to integrate conquered peoples, and how, in the 19th century, they embraced exclusivity, leading to ethnic cleansing, genocide and the dynasty's demise after the First World War. Upending Western concepts of the Renaissance, the Age of Exploration, the Reformation, this account challenges our understandings of sexuality, orientalism and genocide.
Radically retelling their remarkable story, The Ottomans is a magisterial portrait of a dynastic power and the first to truly capture its cross-fertilisation between East and West.
Critic reviews
"A book as sweeping, colorful, and rich in extraordinary characters as the empire which it describes." (Tom Holland)
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What listeners say about The Ottomans
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Matt
- 09-11-21
Brilliant
A fascinating story with a terrible ending, highly recommended for anyone interested in the ottomans, really shows how they are a part of European history.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Amanda McFadyen
- 15-01-24
Fascinating history
Comprehensive yet always enjoyable. This a book to be enjoyed over and over again to ensure that you don’t miss anything.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Iain G.
- 13-01-23
outstanding
There are few works that cover such a long period with such ease and context. You will get a great listen and a very good overview of Ottoman history.
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- Revd S BALL
- 09-06-23
Compelling story
An excellent and wide ranging history - this is also a key part of European history too often ignored.
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-02-24
The level of details and how those details are linked!
Great book, listened twice in one month. How it keeps on reminding the reader of past events, already mentioned, whenever a later event is linked/caused.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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- Anonymous User
- 14-08-22
A fresh take on a canonical story
First and foremost I'd recommend not limiting your scope of ottoman history to just this book. It's good and has some interesting points but cannot really aspire to be a comprehensive guide or a canonical introduction.
I've read this book in sync (syncing the scope of historical eras) with Balfour's The Ottoman Centuries and this method proved itself quite useful in my opinion.
On the one hand, Baer skipped a lot of quite important events or played them down to a miniscule role compared to Balfour; on the other hand, he gave way for several themes unfitting Balfour's drier narrative. And vice versa, where one lagged or stumbled, the other elaborated on much more details and themes.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Guy
- 24-07-22
Enlightening and essential reading
Beautiful narration and easy to follow . Gives the reader a perspective that perhaps is often misunderstood on the region and the Ottoman empire
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- Merewyn
- 04-02-23
Excellent
Fascinating. I really enjoyed this book. I studied some ottoman history at a level. This helped me dig deeper.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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- Sagar Jayanti
- 01-12-23
very detailed
while narrating history, writer tried to justify few things through today's lense. he could have left it as is and allowed readers to make a judgement.
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- Jamie Barron
- 08-02-22
Consistently fascinating, thorough & analytical
Eloquently written and with what seemed to me (new to the subject) a great depth and breadth of research, this was a truly fascinating tour of Ottoman history. The historical characters are vivid in Baer’s descriptions, and I really enjoyed the way he contextualised the historical events in terms of influences of both East and West.
This struck me as a very balanced overview, with some really thought-provoking analysis. Baer follows a roughly chronological approach, but as the book progresses he explains why this is less tight as it goes on, which I felt worked very well. As well as describing and narrating, he takes time for analysis of cultural aspects of Ottoman life that don’t suit a chronological telling - the role of women; homosexuality; how Western Europe depicted Ottomans in Orientalising ways; etc.
Between the consistently interesting content and the perfect narration by Jamie Parker, this was all I could want from a history audiobook.
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