The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs

This major new history of the Ottoman dynasty reveals a diverse empire that straddled East and West.

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. Indeed, the Ottoman rulers saw themselves as the new Romans. Recounting the Ottomans' remarkable rise from a frontier principality to a world empire, historian Marc David Baer traces their debts to their Turkish, Mongolian, Islamic, and Byzantine heritage. The Ottomans pioneered religious toleration even as they used religious conversion to integrate conquered peoples. But in the nineteenth century, they embraced exclusivity, leading to ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the empire's demise after the First World War. 

The Ottomans vividly reveals the dynasty's full history and its enduring impact on Europe and the world.

Author: Marc David Baer
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 10/05/2021
Pages: 560
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.85lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.40w x 1.90d
ISBN13: 9781541673809
ISBN10: 1541673808
BISAC Categories:
- History | Middle East | Turkey & Ottoman Empire
- Religion | Islam | History
- History | Europe | Baltic States

About the Author
Marc David Baer is professor of international history at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the author of five books, including Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe, which won the Albert Hourani Prize. He lives in London.