By nearly every measure, the sixteenth century bore witness to a remarkable number of extraordinary monarchs.  Rulers such as Henry VIII and Elizabeth I of England, Francis I of France, the Habsburg emperors Charles V and Philip II, Ivan IV of Russia, ‘Abbas I of Persia, and the Mughal emperor Akbar reshaped their realms through their ambitious policies and forceful rule.  Yet even in this august group the name of Suleiman stands out.  As sultan of the Ottomans, Suleiman led the empire during what is generally regarded as the pinnacle of its glory and power.  Under his rule the empire flourished and extended its control over three continents.  Yet in spite of this Suleiman has received far less attention form biographers than most of his contemporaries, present more often as an opponent or an ally in many accounts than as a figure worth of attention in his own right.

 

Given this, Andre Clot’s biography of the sultan is to be welcomed.  A longtime journalist, Clot divides his book into two parts.  The first is a straightforward narrative of Suleiman’s life that addresses on the political and military aspects of his reign.  This section focuses heavily on Suleiman’s interactions with Christian Europe, even to the point of having an entire chapter addressing the sultan’s relations with Francis I.  The second part of the book is an examination of the Ottoman empire during Suleiman’s reign, one that describes the economy, urban life, and culture that existed during his reign.  Though the two sections compliment each other, each part stands alone to the point of being able to be read separate from the other, a lack of integration that ultimately weakens the effort to present a rounded overall picture of Suleiman and his times.

 

In the end, the focus and structure of the book prevent it from achieving Clot’s stated goal of providing a fuller understanding of Suleiman and his empire.  The Eurocentrism of Clot’s narrative slights the considerable campaigns Suleiman conducted on his eastern borders against the Safavids, to say nothing of his considerable contributions to the empire’s internal development in such areas as the law.  Mixing the two sections might have counterbalanced this, but their separation inhibits an easy understanding of his role and impact within the broader empire.  These problems limit the usefulness of Clot’s book, which is recommended for anyone seeking to learn about the sultan only because of the disappointing lack of anything better.

For the past several decades, readers seeking an introduction to the Ottoman empire have turned to Halil Inalcik’s seminal book The Ottoman Empire; The Classical Age.  Written by the dean of Ottoman history, it provided an overview of its history and an examination of its components that has stood the test of time.  Over the three and a half decades since its publication, however, a wealth of new scholarship has emerged that has refined and developed our knowledge.  The fruits of this can be seen in Colin Imber’s study, one that treads much of the same ground as Inalcik but does so with the benefit of an additional generation of study.

 

The layout of Imber’s book is similar to that of Inalcik’s (which Imber helped translate); an initial section chronicling the political and military history of the period followed by chapters providing an analytical overview of various aspects of the empire.  But whereas Inalcik’s book provided a broad‑ranging survey that included its cultural and religious elements, Imber focuses more narrowly on the institutions of state: the palace, the bureaucracy, and the military.  This allows him to provide a more detailed examination of the military state, one that describes its development and shows how it both conquered and governed the lands of three continents.

 

Clearly written and well grounded in the literature of the field, Imber’s book is a detailed and up-to-date account of the factors underpinning Ottoman power in the first centuries of its existence.  Anyone seeking an introduction to the Ottoman empire would do well to start with it.  With its concentration on imperial institutions and its closer examination of such things as the Ottoman navy (which has received far more scholarly attention in recent decades than it had when Inalcik wrote his book), it complements rather than replaces Inalcik’s longstanding survey, providing readers with a good foundation for exploring in more detail the last and greatest of the Muslim empires.

I only had access to this book briefly so could read just two chapters. It was clearly written and very enlightening even so, as it pointed out something that I needed explaining and I am sure many more people do. This is that, for much of our history, vast swathes of Europe, Asia and Africa were the preserve of nomads and not settled people, and that in many important respects, settled civilizations depended on nomadic people to enable communication and trade over the vast distances separating them from each other. The Ottoman Empire understood this and had a lively and fruitful relationship with the nomads making up a significant proportion of their population. In addition to permanent nomads, there were temporary and seasonal migrants, making productive use of marginal lands, and meeting the needs of the expanding empire to occupy and defend border territories and new acquisitions. As to the way the empire managed these relationships over the long term, I picked up a strong hint that the nomads were valued while the empire was expanding, but suffered increasing restrictions in later centuries. I must find out more.

This beautiful book

isn’t as fun to read.

It treats your heart like a stone

and tosses it into a lake

where it skips and skips and skips.

 

It’s not easy to read

you might have figured that one out

but it’s worth every moment of pain it will put you through

 

You see

it’s not a regular YA novel.

it is one that tells a story of immense loss

yet it also tells a story of familial love.

 

The author doesn’t cut back on the

gory details

believe me

I’d know.

 

But at the same time, she is honest

which is why this book is so heartbreaking

 

With its fierce characters

who continue to march on

You cannot help but fall in love

with not just with their innocent determination

 

You cheer for them

because they need to be cheered

Most of all though,

you hope,

you hope everything will be all right.

 

If you are a lover of truth and

a lover of heartbreakingly real stories

I’d say give this one a shot

and let your heart skip skip skip

over a lake of your own tears

This book is a (weak) five-star right up to its last couple of chapters. Informative, well-written (if somewhat breezy) and detailed. The interpretation is... debatable, at many points, but a history book that forces you to think about interpreting events can't be faulted for that, right?

Reading the last two chapters and epilogue are a bit like finding a fly in the soup, after you've eaten most of the soup. McMeekin's views on the meaning of jihad in Islam and the origins of anti-semitism in the Middle East are the sort of discredited Iraqi Freedom-era propaganda I expect to see in a Reddit thread, not a serious (if popular) book of history. The "Clash of Civilizations" nonsense would not be out of place here.

Weirdly, McMeekin does all the necessary discrediting himself, in the earlier chapters of the book. The abject failure of the German-backed jihad projects against the British and French Empires tell us all we need to know about the relative importance of "Islamic holy war" vs good old styled Nationalism.

I'm letting this one have four stars if read as a appendix to Fromkin's far, far better Peace to End All Peace, as the information presented here fleshes out and contextualizes Fromkin's book, which focuses largely on the Entente's role in shaping the post-war Middle East, while this one is largely about the pre-war and wartime German project for the same area.