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Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire

Jason Goodwin

Why we're reading this: Good jumping off point for all things Ottoman. Especially wonderful if you've Read Lord Norwich's books o…more
[close] Good jumping off point for all things Ottoman. Especially wonderful if you've Read Lord Norwich's books on Byzantium.

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Jan 17, 2013 Jim rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: middle-east, history

Perhaps one of the reasons we are having so many problems relating to the Middle East and the Muslim world is that we choose to avert our gaze from it. Practically no one of my acquaintance knows anything about the Ottoman Empire, which lasted some 600 years. Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire by Jason Goodwin is an excellent place to start. It ranks with the classic The Ottoman Centuries by Lord Kinross, which takes a more traditional chronologically structured approach to t Perhaps one of the reasons we are having so many problems relating to the Middle East and the Muslim world is that we choose to avert our gaze from it. Practically no one of my acquaintance knows anything about the Ottoman Empire, which lasted some 600 years. Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire by Jason Goodwin is an excellent place to start. It ranks with the classic The Ottoman Centuries by Lord Kinross, which takes a more traditional chronologically structured approach to the subject, while Goodwin, while appearing to be more impressionistic, actually covers the ground just as well.

As he states in his introduction,

This book is about a people who do not exist. The word 'Ottoman' does not describe a place. Nobody nowadays speaks their language. Only a few professors can begin to understand their poetry -- 'We have no classics,' snapped a Turkish poet in 1964 at a poetry symposium in Sofia, when asked to acquaint the group with examples of classical Ottoman verse.

Who, then, were the Ottomans? Originally, they were a roving military clique under the command of a sultan. They differed from the Arabs in their great seventh century conquests by not caring all that much about converting infidels to Islam. In fact, during the early centuries of the Empire, they were far more liberal in their treatment of Orthodox Christians, Jews, and others than almost any other peoples.

And they had a formidable army, one that threatened twice to invade Central Europe by besieging Vienna, only to fail twice. Their infantry, incidentally, did not consist of Muslims, but of Janissaries "recruited" from among their Christian client states. Only the spahis, their cavalry, was substantially Turkish and Muslim.

Goodwin regales us with hundreds of anecdotes which are endlessly fascinating and make his one of the most fascinating histories of the last few decades. Did you know, for example, that the Empire did not have a printing press until the 18th century (both Kinross and Goodwin point this out in their histories)? Did you know that the streets of Constantinople and other Ottoman cities were crowded with stray dogs, and that the French offered to buy them to manufacture gloves?

When Osama bin Laden was setting up Al-Qaida, he referred to the Caliphate of Islam as having been vacant for some 70 years, and suggested by implication that he wanted to try out for the job. What the late terrorist forgot to mention was that the Sultan/Caliphs (until almost the very end, they were the same) did not take their role as titular head of Islam terribly seriously.
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Jan 13, 2022 Rindis rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, do-not-own

I'm a little surprised at my copy of Goodwin's book. While it is twenty years old now, by this point publishers were generally aware of the problems of using paper that was too acidic, and using largely acid-free paper. This book's pages are distinctly discolored, with that slightly brittle feel. It makes the book feel a older than it is, because most books contemporary with it don't have that trouble.

Goodwin's writing however is quite good, if a bit scatterbrained. This is very much readable po ...more

4 likes · Like · see review

Aug 09, 2009 Gabrielle rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ottoman-empire

This is the book that started my intense enthusiasm for the Ottomans. Given to me by a colleague who regularly went to Turkey each summer as a guest of an archeologist from the Metropolitan Museum.

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