Ottoman History

For centuries, Christians and Muslims were embroiled in one of the most infamous territorial disputes of all time, viciously and relentlessly battling one another for the Holy Land. In the heart of Jerusalem sat one of the shining jewels of the Christian faith - the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Legend has it that this was where their Savior had been buried before his fabled resurrection. What was more, it was said to house the very cross Jesus Christ had died upon.

As this all suggests, the story of the Young Turks and the last years of the Ottoman Sultanate is a complex and interesting one. It is the history of a state struggling to survive against seemingly impossible odds, featuring a long battle for the minds and souls of the inhabitants of a declining empire. An empire caught between nationalism and liberal imperialism.

The Ottoman Empire was so big, and lasted for so long, yet, it is one of those empires that many common people have forgotten about. In the 20th century, World War I destroyed much of what was left of the empire, and the Turkish state and culture was being established shortly after that. In this comprehensive guide to understanding more about historical events, you will learn more about the sultans, and citizens of the Ottoman Empire - their drive, their background, and their accomplishments throughout the centuries.

In terms of geopolitics, perhaps the most seminal event of the Middle Ages was the successful Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. The city had been an imperial capital as far back as the fourth century, when Constantine the Great shifted the power center of the Roman Empire there, effectively establishing two almost equally powerful halves of antiquity’s greatest empire. Constantinople would continue to serve as the capital of the Byzantine Empire even after the Western half of the Roman Empire collapsed in the late fifth century.

The Safavid dynasty was one of the most notable ruling dynasties of Iran. This Islamic empire was powerful enough to challenge the Mughals in the east and the Ottomans in the west. Their story has shaped what we know as modern Iran more than any other period in its history. In this captivating history audiobook, you will discover all about this remarkable empire that was responsible for one of Persia's golden ages in terms of power and culture.

The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic-Asian antithesis of the Christian-European West. But the reality was starkly different: the Ottomans' multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious domain reached deep into Europe's heart. In their breadth and versatility, the Ottoman rulers saw themselves as the new Romans.

In contemporary public discourse, Gaza tends to be characterized solely as a theater of the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. However, little is known about Gaza's society, politics, economy, and culture during the Ottoman era. Drawing on a range of previously untapped local and imperial sources, Yuval Ben-Bassat and Johann Buessow explore the city's history from the mid-nineteenth century through WWI.

The Balkan area has historically been one of the world’s most combustible regions. Home to several national groups and at a crossroads of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, the Balkans have exerted an outsized role on world affairs. Infamously, the 1914 assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, was the final straw that led to World War I. The Balkans, however, had been flammable long before Princip’s bullets murdered the Austrian monarch-in-waiting.

Istanbul, 1683: Mehmed IV, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, is preparing to lay siege to Vienna, capital of the Holy Roman Empire, when a mysterious visitor arrives in his bedroom - naked, covered in strange tattoos - to deliver a dangerous, world-changing message. Paris, 2017: Ottoman flags have been flying over the great city for 300 years, ever since its fall - along with all of Europe - to the empire’s all-conquering army. Notre Dame has been renamed the Fatih Mosque. Public spaces are segregated by gender.

Inside, you will hear about the history of the Ottoman empire, including: origins until the Balkan conquests; institutions and society: millets, guilds, trade, religion, and mysticism; 15th-century imperial style, 16th-century Golden Age, cracks before World War I; the Eastern Question; and much more!

Where did writing, culture, and agriculture begin? The Middle East is the cradle of civilization - where humankind once roamed in small groups of hunter-gatherers and foraged for food and shelter, then learned to plant crops and build structures. Today, we are an advanced civilization that has conquered the skies, oceans, and even the moon. To understand how this transformation occurred, take a brief trip back into the history of the Middle East, where it all began.

From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the 18th century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. In this path-breaking audiobook, Noel Malcolm ranges through these vital centuries of East-West interaction, studying all the ways in which thinkers in the West interpreted the Ottoman Empire as a political phenomenon - and Islam as a political religion.

During 1915 to 1923, one and a half million Armenian people were deported and killed in the most appalling ways comprehensible. They were ripped from their homes (in a land where they had lived for longer than history can tell, a land so old that many speculate it was the site of the biblical Garden of Eden) and sent off on death marches across the blistering Syrian Desert. They were shot on the thresholds of the houses where they were raising their children. They were butchered with swords in gruesome ways in order to dishearten those left alive.

This remarkable book recreates one of the watershed moments in the history of the Middle East: the ferocious outbreaks of disorder across the Levant in 1860 which resulted in the massacre of thousands of Christians in Damascus. Eugene Rogan brilliantly recreates the lost world of the Middle East under Ottoman rule. This is both an essential book for understanding the emergence of the modern Middle East from the destruction of the old Ottoman world, and a uniquely gripping story.

The beginning of modern Europe was a time of confusion, excitement, suspicion, hope, despair, and ideas. It was a time of a lot of change spread out over just a few hundred years, but the end result was a completely different world than the one that had come before it. This audiobook includes details of the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern era, where Europe saw significant shifts across the continent in phases.

Early in the war, the Ottomans knew the Dardanelles strait would most certainly be attacked and had prepared significant defenses. The plan drafted by the then First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, was meant to destroy Ottoman defenses along the Dardanelles. However, Allied forces comprised of British, Irish, Australian, and New Zealand troops were unable to penetrate the Ottoman defenses, advancing only about 100 meters from the shores. The Ottomans, led by German General Liman von Sanders, further reinforced their positions.

Osman I is one of history’s most important leaders; the founder of the Ottoman Empire, which conquered Asia Minor, most of the Middle East, North Africa, and the Balkans before reaching the very walls of Vienna. Even after its demise, the politics of the Balkan states are very much influenced by the Ottoman past, and Muslim populations remain in the European lands once occupied by the Ottomans. The Middle East’s politics and conflicts trace back to the dissolution of the empire, and in Turkey, the Ottoman legacy remains a topic of national debate.

The Ottoman Empire lasted more than six centuries. Its soldiers fought, died, and conquered lands on three different continents, making it one of the few stable multi-ethnic empires in history - and likely one of the last. Thus, it's somewhat inevitable that the history of its dissolution is at the heart of complex geopolitical disputes, as well as sectarian tensions that are still key to understanding the Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans.

Durante más de seis siglos, el imperio fue posiblemente el imperio musulmán más fuerte del mundo, dominando a sus rivales en Europa y Asia durante muchos años. Abarcando tres continentes y controlando tierras en los Balcanes, el Cáucaso, Crimea, Anatolia, Oriente Próximo, Levante, Egipto y el norte de África, el Imperio otomano fue una de las potencias más amenazadoras en el apogeo de su poder en el siglo XVI. Era temido por otros grandes imperios de Europa.

The Battle of Vienna (1683): The History and Legacy of the Decisive Conflict Between the Ottoman Turkish Empire and Holy Roman Empire chronicles the dramatic siege, and how the Christian forces turned back the Ottomans. You will learn about the battle like never before.