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The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power

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For the past thirty-six years, readers seeking an introduction to the Ottoman empire have turned to Halil Inalcik's classic The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600. 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.

The book is unusual, for me at least, in its style. It has a flowing narrative, unlike many history books in academia, while containing many valuable references for most of the significant events and people. I got a sense of the chess power play that prevailed in the Balkans for almost a century before the Ottomans conquered it. All this information almost inexistent in most of the history books of the Balkan countries which, in my opinion, even today suffer from a national-romantic tone of the 19th century portraying the Ottomans as a dark chapter in their history that destroyed their otherwise earthly paradise.

The book also offers insights on the judicial and military organization of the empire and where the source of this organization came from. It combines cultural influences from Turkic, Arab, and Persian world, together with the presence of a former empire (Byzantium), offering a blend of rational explanations.

It is a book that I am going to read again.

This book suggests the structure of power in the Ottoman Empire, from 1300 to 1650. I did not get that information from reading this book. Of course, he mostly took the European perspective, as the book title suggests, but this book lacts more facts than most books on the Ottoman Empire. This book was lacking information for me. I would not have bought it if I would have been allowed to look inside the book first. (I did not have that feature when I purchased the book).