By Alan Palmer

FROM THE JACKET: “…the Ottoman Empire took “an unconscionable time dying.” Since the seventeenth century observers had been predicting the collapse of this so-called Sick Man of Europe. Yet it survived all its rivals. As late as 1910. the Ottoman Empire straddled three continents. Unlike the Romanovs. Habsburgs, or Hohenzollerns, the House of Osman. which had allied itself with the Kaiser, was still recognized as an imperial dynasty during the peace conference following World War I.

The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire offers a provocative view of the empire's decline, from the failure to take Vienna in 1683 to the abolition of the Sultanate by Alustafa Kemal Attaturk) in 1922 during a revolutionary upsurge in Turkish national pride. The narrative contains instances of violent evolt and bloody reprisals. such as the massacres of Armenians in 1806. and other "ethnic episodes" in Crete and Macedonia. More generally, it emphasizes recurring probleins: competition between religious arid secular authority; the acceptance or rejection of' lestern ideas: and the strength or weakness of succossive Sultans. The book also highlights the special chalienges of the early twentieth century, when railways and oilfields gave new importance to Ottoman lands in the Middle Eas!….”

NY. Barnes and Noble. 1992. 366p.