Customer Reviews

Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Though more people today associate the word "ottoman" with fancy cushioned footstools than with a mighty regime, the Ottoman Empire dominated much of southeastern Europe and the Middle East from the fifteenth century to the end of the First World War. In many respects it was the last of the great Muslim empires which challenged Christian Europe, while its' lengthy decline concerned generations of Western statesman and its successor states still demand the world's attention.

In this book, Caroline Finkel offers us a single-volume history of the Ottoman Empire, ranging from its obscure origins to its demise in the 1920s. Though similar overviews have been written before, her goal is to dispel the traditional "rise and fall" approach and to free the empire from its' stereotyping as, in her words, "a theatre of the absurd." Tapping into the enormous wealth of recent scholarly work on the Ottomans, she offers a far more complex and nuanced portrayal of the empire than in most popular accounts - pointing out, for example, that the ranks of the soldiers of the early empire included as many Christians as it did Muslims, and that it was not until well into the empire's decline in the 18th century that the Ottoman sultans began to embrace the previously disused title of caliph.

Yet the book suffers from a relatively narrow focus. Most of the text is dominated by a narrative of high politics, one concentrating on the machinations and maneuvering of the sultans; other elements, such as the complex social and economic structures of the empire, are addressed only in passing. Moreover, Finkel rarely explains the empire in any depth. Key institutions such as the janissaries are mentioned and their political role is covered, but the reasons for their existence and maintenance are rarely analyzed in detail. The result is that while readers are informed of the "who" "what" and "when" of Ottoman history, the "how" and the "why" often are left unaddressed.

Nonetheless, Finkel has provided an accessible overview of the Ottoman Empire, one largely free from the Eurocentric stereotyping all too typical of many earlier histories of the subject. While the text is often dense with details, the narrative itself is straightforward and a useful set of maps are provided to help readers master the intricacies of the human geography of the period. This book is likely to serve as the standard work on the empire for many years to come, though one that should be supplemented by more explanatory texts.

This is a decent survey of Ottoman history. In many ways, this is traditional history from above, mainly a political history concentrating on the ups and downs of the reigns of the Ottoman Sultans. Finkel does well in constructing the basic narrative, covering centuries of Ottoman history in solid prose. The complicated dynastic politics of several periods are covered well. Finkel makes a less successful attempt to integrate social and economic history. She describes different phases of social and demographic history in the Empire as related to the political history but rarely provides enough detail to be satisfactory. For example, she mentions the declining Muslim population of the 19th century empire but never describes the size of the population or whether this was an absolute or relative decline. In many sections, she devotes more text to architectural history than relevant economic or social history. This book is largely descriptive and useful on that basis. As a basic political history, it will probably be useful for many, but its analytic shortcomings make its utility limited.

In the last few years there has been many good new studies on the Ottoman Empire. But none has been a history of the Ottomans from start to finish, based on a wide range of sources, but also a flowing narrative, not a textbook. Now with Osman's Dream we have a narrative history that will be hard to surpass.

The only other book that comes close in its readability is Lord Kinross's classic, written in the 1970s. But that was an old-style study, based on ancient legends and old prejudices. Caroline Finkel's book comes from deep knowledge of the Ottoman sources, and for the first time, the long story rings true.

Few empires were more complex and more opaque to the outsider than the Ottoman world. Finkel understands it and she never lets her own opinions get in the way of opening up that world to the reader.

She draws together this long history in a manner that disentangles its complexities, brings its individuals to life, and connects the Ottoman past to the Turkish present. Even with well known episodes, she manages to add something new, often through the deft use of Ottoman sources in a sprightly translation. It is a huge book, but for this reader, never seemed overlong.

There is often one book that will outlast all the others on any given subject, and will define the topic for a generation. Finkel already has a reputation in her academic area of Ottoman studies. The truly remarkable aspect of Osman's Dream is that it is good not just on her speciality, but all the way through, from the 14th to the 20th century. A magnicent achievement.

The last years shelved a handful of new books that revise and overview the Ottoman history from construction to demise. Goodwin's Lord of the Horizons, Faroqhi's the Ottoman Empire and the World Around it, or Imber's the Ottoman Empire 1300-1600 already gave professors a hand with their survey cirrucula.

In similar vein though Osman's dream may be, it further serves with its lucid style as the most updated and reiterative (same-old-story-rehashing) work written in the field.

Major problems that Ottomanists have long discussed such as on periodization, methods of conquest, role of dervishes, the reverberation of tensions between center-province-local, the f/actors that in effect changed/stabilized the Ottoman trajectory deserve a better place than mere explication of the symptoms and diagnosis come forward earlier.

I do not agree with Nikephorus Phokas (a customer that previously reviewed the book) on grounds that Osman's Dream ignores the Genocide: not advertently. As a matter of fact, it seems to me that Finkel undertook her work as unpolemical and selective as possible. There are many other issues she does not touch on as she accepts honestly.

My recommend to a reader would be that s/he complement Osman's Dream with other works in the field, particularly Findley's Turks in World History and Quataert's Ottoman Empire 1700-1922. And, keep in mind that this work appeals primarily to general readers and in some ways to those that want to refresh their factual knowledge on this vast chunk of history.

There is no reason to be cynical in Osman's Dream's overall success. I am not, still, expecting a Hofstadter to write an Ottoman Age of Reform, a Foner "Ottoman's Unfinished Revolution", or a letter-day Bloch "Ottoman Middle Ages". This work may well place the history of the Ottoman Empire into a broader historical template, better than others that try hard to integrate it to the European history.

This is one more book about Ottoman history, a subject which lately semms to have become fashionable. As a general outline of the Empire's history it is pretty good, mentioning all important events, and doing so from an Ottoman perspective. This last is significant, as traditional histories tend to adopt an anti-Turkish approach by default. I have given this book 3 stars because it omits no serious events, because of the fact that it narrates them from the Ottoman viewpoint and because it utilises many sources, including Ottoman ones.

I have declined givng the last two stars because of two problems: One, many institutions and events are treated superficially or have an inaccurate description -- there is litle depth and often further research reveals the summary presented by the author to be the truth but by no means the whole truth. (or the most important part thereof -- although this also depends on what one considers to be the most important aspect of an event).

The second problem is one endemic to US/English scholarly work:
All too often, the sources cited, though numerous, turn out to consist of english-language bibliography plus some sources from the culture/people being studied. In this case the bibliography consists of Ottoman and english language sources. Yet when writing history it is oftem critical to examine the writings of a people's neighbors and enemies as well. This is sadly lacking here, the author seems not to be aware of contemporary Greek, Italian, Persian or Russian sources. An example: in discussing te 1821 Greek revolt, the author states that it is not clear whether Prince Ypsilantis's Moldavian adventure was undertaken in coordination with the Morea rebels. Yet anyone with elementary knowledge of contemorary greek writings on the issue cannot help but be aware that coordination did exist and in fact the whole point of the Moldavian affair was to provide at worst a diversion for Ottoman troops and at best cause a Russo-Turkish war.

One last thing, an appeal to my fellow Greeks, concerning reviews who give the book one star because it ignores how evil vicious and subhuman the Turks are: Can we PLEASE grow up and stop demonizing the Turks? Yes the author does not mention the Armenian genocide and the pogroms at the Ottoman Greeks expense as forcefully as many of us might have liked, but the way to draw attention to these omissions is NOT by blatantly exaggerating Turkish "cruelty" or the number of people who fell victim of the upheavals at the end of WWI. Stop automatically denigrating everything that may disagree with "our" POV!

"Osman's Dream" is that rare thing, a work of groundbreaking history that is also extremely timely. This book is crucial for anyone seeking to understand relations between East and West or Turkey's place in the world today. The epic story of the Ottomans from their origins in the steppes of Central Asia to their occupation of much of Europe, this is the first book to uncover the empire's own dynamic history. The book shimmers with the splendor of the imperial court at a time when European nations were barely emerging from backwoods primitivism. Multiracial, multicultural, multinational, for much of its history the Ottoman empire exceeded Europe in religious tolerance and cultural richness. Caroline Finkel's beautifully written narrative challenges from the ground up the orthodoxies and stereotypes that haunt popular views of the Ottomans and the Turks. Everybody who was fascinated by the "Turks" exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London (2005) should buy and read this book. It is a sophisticated synthesis of the best new scholarship and of original archival research, with lessons for today's contentious nationalisms at every turn.

This is a scholarly review of the political and military history of the Ottoman Empire, from its foundation in the early 14th century until the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Because the material covers over six hundred years in just over 550 pages, it is unavoidably superficial in most places. As a result, it is helpful as a college-level, introductory survey of the Ottomans, best followed up with more detailed study. It is far too general to be of much use to a specialist. I believe it is too dense for the casual reader, so I would not recommend it to anyone without a real interest in middle eastern history.

The book is a political history, with extremely rare forays into matters of culture, religion, ethnicity, art or architecture. We are presented with an endless list of Sultans, viziers, military commanders, battles, treaties and boundaries, and virtually no analysis. For example, we have no discussion of the reasons the early Ottomans were so overwhelmingly successful at expanding the empire. The Ottomans were one of the first middle eastern empires to adopt gunpowder weapons, but Finkel does not discuss this adoption, or the impact it had on early conquests. Indeed, Finkel's discussions of warfare in general is universally vague -- she tells us who won the battles, but not why.

Another problem is that the book gives extremely little notice to more distant Ottoman realms, in North Africa, Egypt, the Hijaz and Syria/Palestine. Near the end, when the Empire begins to fragment, we get some mention of Mehmet Ali [Muhammad Ali] and the sharifs of Mecca. This is extremely cursory, and the subject is abandoned soon after it is taken up.

In conclusion, this book does tolerably well at achieving a limited goal: providing a general survey to a college-level beginner, as a springboard to more advanced studies. Readers looking for something beyond that narrow scope will be disappointed.

I have some specific comments about the contents of the book, but for space considerations I will put them in a comment to this review.

Finkel's history of the Ottoman empire is certainly comprehensive in scope, encompassing the empire from its origins in the late middle-ages to the rise of Ataturk. Yet I begrudgingly give it four stars. While the scope and scale of the Ottoman empire is presented in detail, there was an ebb and flow to the relative strength of her writing, which was distracting.

The first quarter of the history is remarkable - I assume this is Finkel's area of expertise, given the detail of the political, religious and social climate of Anatolia and the eastern Mediterranean in the 13th and 14th centuries. How Osman began to exploit the various divisions of competing ethnic groups, religions, and constantly shifting political loyalties is shown masterfully. With such a strong start, I was disappointed in her treatment of the founding and expansion of the empire in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Recognizing that this is an *Ottoman* history, I had expected more detail and information on the conquest and occupation of the Balkans, the political competition between Hungary, Poland, Habsburg Austria and the mariatime powers of Venice and Genoa. These states were of course disucssed, but I had expected a deeper, more nuanced historical analysis of the complex econcomic and political competition between each of them.

Thankfully Finkel again finds her footing as she writes about the 18th and 19th centuries - in fact, her discussion of the slow and painful implosion of the Ottoman empire was, to me at least, the best part of the book as she intertwines the various causes of its decline: increased econcomic competition from industrializing European nations, the influx of silver from the New World, new shipping routes to India and Asia, the adoption of "real politik" by European nation-states (and the reluctance to do so by the Ottomans), growing national movements within the Ottoman empire, and of course the overall reluctance by the Janissaries and ulaema to embrace change and moderinzation in any form.

In writing, the amount of historical detail is almost overwhelming - repeatedly I had to remind myself what the larger point being made was given the sheer volume of information she shares. Clearly she is writing for an academic audience, something potential customers may want to keep in mind. In writing for an academic audience, I was disappointed at the relative lack of primary sources she used in her research and writing; many sources are translations or are cited in previously published works. All criticism aside, this is a densely detailed work, with a comprehensive view of the Ottoman empire, and a solid history of an important empire in world history.

This book is large for a reason- it is a comprehensive work on the History of the Ottoman Empire, not a small pocket-sized guide for just anyone. That is what is lost here, for this book delivers on what it promises. If you wish to know much more about the details of the Ottoman Empire and love history, then I highly recommend this work. It starts from the first conquests of the Ottomans onwards up until the beginnings of the Turkish Republic under Ataturk, which is 600 years of fascinating events. It provides details into the minds of each ruler and his governmental structure, how relations were improved or destroyed, and provides many references from primary sources which add to the narrative. Don't buy this book if you want a quick lesson- buy it if you are truly serious in learning more of the history of the Ottoman Empire.

While this book provides a rather quick paced narrative for a large span of history, its divergence from established historical fact regarding the Armenian Genocide is so blatant as to border on propaganda. While the author spends a short amount of time on the issue, admitting that "some" atrocity took place, her views completely run counter to a vast amount if well established research. Given the significance of mass murder and her attempts to belittle the issue, I cannot in good conscience recommend this book.