Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire

Compelling reading. Lord Kinross, the author is kind of an Ottoman /Turkish history expert having written half a dozen books on the subject. In its grand sweep, spanning 7 centuries...Kinross takes us thru the history of the birth of the Ottoman empire, the gradual demise of the Byzantine empire, the conquest of Constantinople, the rapid growth of a Muslim empire into the Christian lands of Europe, the Sultans - some great to some downright mediocre, the eventual eclipse of the empire finally in the early 20th century and the genesis of the first world war. Though it seems like a history text book at times, it provides incisive insights into the rise and fall of an empire, which was possibly the grandest that we know of in the last 1000 years. It finally ends with the end of the empire and the birth of the nation state, the modern Turkey as we know.Read this book if you want to get to know and understand...an empire which at one time seemed unassailable