Ottoman Centuries

I am no authority in Ottoman and Turkish history, but I can sniff some degrees of mediocrity in history books. "The Ottoman Centuries" is like one of those vaguely researched and poignantly narrated Eastern European or Middle Eastern chronicles stemming from verbal, unsubstantiated material passed on from generation to generation and increasingly exaggerated along the way.

For one thing, Lord Kinross writes 622 pages compiled from a meager bibliography made up of some 20 or 30 texts, some of which are such milestone survey histories as Edward Gibbons' "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire." Who is he kidding?

Notwithstanding this criticism, the author's balance and objectivity are sprinkled in each and every chapter in generous bunches. His western voice transports deeds of a radicalized people to the ears of those much too unfamiliar with a nation caught between the Bosporus and Anatolia, misunderstood, unwanted, feared and mistrusted by Europeans and Asians alike.

Perhaps, it is in the pages describing the political, military and religious institutions spawned from the Porte that Lord Kinross reaches the zenith of his book. In it, the reader can grasp some of the factors motivating the Ottomans' crave for assassinating brothers to protect uninterrupted lineage, impaling infidels or decapitating prisoners for sport.

"The Ottoman Centuries" is a good companion for those fond of sophomoric Turkish History 101 survey courses, but lacks the punch line to convince history scholars.

In reading the previous reviews before I decided to write this, I concede that if you are indeed very knowledgible on Turkish history, this will not add very much to your academic base.

And in trying to deal with 622 years of history in just over 600 pages, choices had to be made on what to describe in detail and what he had to either gloss over. Except for the ignorant statement on the Armenian persecution, all comments regarding how most emphasis was on the European part of the Empire with little attention on the Middle East and North Africa are true.

But what this book does for you is make you want to LEARN MORE. This book convinced me to by the Byzantium - Decline and Fall from John Julius Norwich, which covered much of the same period in this books Parts I and II. And that book has made me want to expand further.

The best parts of the book for me were Parts I, II, and III which takes us to the "Zenith of the Empire" with Sultan Suleiman's death. Highlights include the sieges and eventual capture of Constantinople, the effect of Timur, and the detail of the campaigns of Suleiman and the wonderful descriptions of the battles that turned history (including the failed Vienna sieges).

As another reviewer said (taking the words out of my mouth), Parts VI and VII did drag a bit - likely because stories in the late empire pale in the comparison with the early chapter. But this in no way should deminish this books value in your library.

As a starter history book, the reading is easy, sketches and maps very helpful, and many sections enthralling. It is with this type of reader that I give this 5 stars.

Here Lord Kinross has created quite an achievement in historical writing, summing up the 600 years of the Ottoman empire in one concise, easy to read, yet expansive narrative. Kinross shows a clear understanding of large historical, cultural, and political trends that results in a narrative that is sweeping in its scope. Kinross is clearly influenced by Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" and even uses that phrase a few times in this book, merely replacing the word "Roman" with "Ottoman." Hence while Kinross is commenting on the minute details of various time periods throughout Ottoman history, he also keeps you appraised of the long-term trends that would result first in the empire's rise to greatness and then its slow downfall. One weakness of this method though, is the frequent use of the "beginning of the end" or "it was all downhill from here" refrains, which was also noticed by another reviewer here on Amazon. In fact, Kinross first brings this up way back at the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, nearly four centuries before the empire finally dissolved, although it's true that the empire had reached its peak at that point. Another possible point of contention with this book is Kinross' coverage of the empire's foreign relations, with most space going to the Europeans to the west and later the Russians to the north. There is very little about the empire's relations with the Persians to the east, and almost nothing about the Arabs and Africans to the south. However this is probably more the result of the differing amounts of documentation and evidence available in each area, rather than any bias on the author's part. Meanwhile Parts VI and VII really drag with minute details on the political wranglings of the European powers in relation to the empire. But those are just some minor weaknesses, which are more than made up for by the strengths described above, as well as Kinross' occasional forays into colorful descriptions of the lifestyles of the royals and their subjects, and coverage of the empire's culture and architecture.

Finally, one reviewer here for some self-serving reason slammed this book for failing to cover the massacres of the Armenians. This is 100% false, as Kinross not only covers three different periods in which the Turks tried to smash the Armenians, but effectively places the blame where it's due. That reactionary critic both failed to read the book and failed to realize that it supports his position. He/she also claims that the fall of the empire is left out, supposedly missing an entire half of the book. Figure that one out.

In the West unfortunately little is taught about Turkish history: the average person perhaps has only a general idea of the Ottoman Empire, and tragically little understanding of the formation of the subsequent Republic under Ataturk. Kinross's book is the essential skeleton for anyone looking to obtain a more in-depth knowledge of the long-reigning, sprawling Moslem empire, or looking to begin a more intricate study of it. Kinross runs over all of the major events and significant Sultans with shrewd insight into the functioning, or lack thereof, of the different Ottoman regimes.

This is unfortunately perhaps the only work by Kinross, a great authority on Turkish history, still in print and (surprisingly) in mass circulation. Kinross's legendary biography of Ataturk and his studies of the Suez, the Taurus range, etc. have unfortunaly been forgotten; but for anyone who enjoyed this book or is in need of such a perceptive author as Kinross, there's always your Public Library.

Another reader commented on the omission of the Armenian massacres in the book: this is a blantantly erroneous accusation. For the record, Kinross goes well into the topic of the Armenian genocide campaigns by both Abdul-Hamid II and the Young Turks in this book: he gives, at great length, long and gruesome depictions of these horrifying mass-murders. In my experience with reading Kinross, he rarely misses an opportunity to reflect on the tragedy, even wryly pointing out in "Ataturk" the ironies of how it would later heavily burden the Turks on the deserted Eastern front against the Russians in WWI.

That this book has remained in print since at least the mid-1970s and has survived the author for more than twenty-five years should tell you something of its quality. In the fourteenth century, the Ottomans began to fill the power vacuum left by an increasingly ineffectual Byzantium. In 1453, the Sultan's troops captured Constantinople and converted the basilica to a mosque: there followed centuries of military supremacy and expansion, culminating in Suleiman the Magnificent's unsuccessful seige of Vienna in 1529. Sadly for the Turks (and happily for others), the Ottoman state never stopped trying to be the world's most successful feudal system: this was all well and good for medieval times, but the Renaissance, Enlightenment and Revolutionary eras largely passed the Sultanate by, and by 1878, the Tsar dubbed it the "sick man of Europe." The patient expired in 1922. Kinross, an avid admirer and disciple of Edward Gibbon, is generous in providing rich, sometimes bloody, details of the Seraglio's inner workings, including the liberal use of the "Imperial Bowstring" (which was used by every new ruler to garrot any of his siblings who posed as potential usurpers). My only criticism of Kinross is his repetition of the "And It Was All Downhill From Here" mantra: he first chants it when the Venetians defeated an Ottoman galley-fleet at Lepanto (1571); it is then applied to every subsequent assasination or defeat.