"The Ottoman Empire had been one of the major forces in European history since the Middle Ages. By 1914 it had been much reduced, but still remained after Russia the largest European state. Stretching from the Adriatic to the Indian Ocean, the Empire was both a great political entity and a religious one, with the Sultan ruling over the Holy Sites and, as Caliph, the successor to the Prophet Mohammed. Yet the Empire's fateful decision to support Germany...

At its height, the Ottoman Empire spread from Yemen to the gates of Vienna. Western perceptions of the Ottomans have often been distorted by Orientalism, characterizing their rule as oppressive and destructive, while seeing their culture as exotic and incomprehensible. Based on a lifetime's experience of living and working across its former provinces, Diana Darke offers a unique overview of the Ottoman Empire's cultural legacy one century after its...

A Pasha of Cuisine is a rare talent in Ottoman lore. Only two, maybe three are born with such a gift every few centuries. A natural master of gastronomy, he is the sovereign genius who reigns over aromas and flavors and can use them to influence the hearts and minds, even the health, of those who taste his creations. In this fabulous novel, one such chef devises a plot bring down the Ottoman Empire-should he need to-in order to rescue the love of...

When the feared sultan of the mid-16th-century Ottoman Empire issues a chess tournament challenge to European royals, a young Elizabeth I accompanies England's champion, only to witness a brutal murder amid dangerous court machinations.

"Between 1911 and 1923, a series of wars-- chief among them World War I-- would engulf the Ottoman Empire and its successor states. It is a story we think we know well, but, as Sean McMeekin shows us in this revelatory new history, we know far less than we think. Drawing from his years of ground-breaking research in newly opened Ottoman and Russian archives, 'The Ottoman Endgame' brings to light the entire strategic narrative that led to an unstable...

"The Mapmaker's Daughter, a historical novel set in the 16th century, is the confession of Nurbanu, born Cecilia Baffo Veniero - the mesmerizing, illegitimate Venetian who became the most powerful woman in the Ottoman Empire at the height of its power under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent--the bold backstory of the Netflix Series, Magnificent Century." Narrating the spectacular story of her rise to the pinnacle of imperial power, Queen Mother Nurbanu,...

"In the late sixteenth century, a prominent Albanian named Antonio Bruni composed a revealing document about his home country. Historian Sir Noel Malcolm takes this document as a point of departure to explore the lives of the entire Bruni family, whose members included an archbishop of the Balkans, the captain of the papal flagship at the Battle of Lepanto--at which the Ottomans were turned back in the Eastern Mediterranean--in 1571, and a highly...