empire

The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs

by Marc David Baer

Baer retells six centuries of Ottoman history as integral to European history rather than exotic to it, tracing how a Turkic frontier dynasty became the heir of Rome, Islam, and the steppe simultaneously. He argues that Europe cannot understand itself without the Ottomans, and that the empire's religious pluralism, genocidal endpoints, and legacy of partition still shape the Middle East and the Balkans.