Description

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The story of the fall of the Ottoman Empire offers a new way of understanding the twentieth century

"Brings a welcome human lens to the story of the empire's disintegration.' Washington Post

'A tour de force of accessible scholarship' The Guardian

'Impressive ... It is a complicated story that still reverberates, and Gingeras narrates it with lucid authority' New Statesman

The Ottoman Empire had been one of the major facts in European history since the Middle Ages. Stretching from the Adriatic to the Indian Ocean, the Empire was both a great political entity and a religious one, with the Sultan, as Caliph, the successor to Mohammed. Yet the Empire's fateful decision to support Germany and Austria-Hungary in 1914 doomed it to disaster, breaking it up into a series of European colonies and what emerged as an independent Saudi Arabia.

Ryan Gingeras's superb new book explains how these epochal events came about and shows how much we still live in the shadow of decisions taken so long ago. Would all of the Empire fall to marauding Allied armies, or could something be saved? In such an ethnically and religiously entangled region, what would be the price paid to create a cohesive and independent new state?

The story of the creation of modern Turkey is an extraordinary, bitter epic, brilliantly told here.

About the Author

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Ryan Gingeras is a professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, California. His previous books include Eternal Dawn: Turkey in the Age of Atatürkand Sorrowful Shores: Violence, Ethnicity, and the End of the Ottoman Empire, which was shortlisted for the Rothschild Book Prize in Nationalism and Ethnic Studies and the British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize. He has published on a wide variety of topics related to history and politics in such publications as Foreign Affairs, New York Times, Washington Post, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Middle East Journal, Iranian Studies, Past & Present, and War on the Rocks. 

Praise For…

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Fruitful reflections on the enduring cultural legacy of the Ottomans, how their empire ended and what was lost when it did ... bringsa welcome human lens to the story of the empire's disintegration.  ―Washington Post

This epic account of Ottoman decline and the birth of modern Turkey is a tour de force of accessible scholarship. ― The Guardian

Gingeras takes an even-handed approach to each issue, while never making light of the horrendous tally of human suffering that emerges on every side. Turks have long been treated to an over-simplified account of their modern history. This book teaches the beginning of wisdom, which is that most human history, as it actually happened, was a terrible, bewildering mess. ―The Telegraph

In his impressive centenary history, Ryan Gingeras recounts not just the death throes of the old realm but the painful emergence of Turkey as a nation state ... It is a complicated story that still reverberates under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Gingeras narrates it with lucid authority. ― New Statesman

Dispassionate and well-researched ... Gingeras sets out the twisting, turning story of decline through the later part of the 19th century.  ― Financial Times