The Last Days of the Ottoman Empire — Ryan Gingeras

Impressive It is a complicated story that still reverberates and Gingeras narrates it with lucid authority New Statesman The story of the fall of the Ottoman Empire published to coincide with the centenary of its dissolution The Ottoman Empire had been one of the major facts 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 Mohammed Yet the Empire s fateful decision to support Germany and Austria Hungary in 1914 despite its successfully defending itself for much of the war doomed it to disaster breaking it up into a series of European colonies and what emerged as an independent Saudi Arabia Ryan Gingeras s superb new book published for the centenary of the last Sultan s departure into exile explains how these epochal events came about and shows how much we still live in the shadow of decisions taken so long ago Would all of the Empire fall to marauding Allied armies or could something be saved In such an ethnically and religiously entangled region what would be the price paid to create a cohesive and independent new state The story of the creation of modern Turkey is an extraordinary bitter epic brilliantly told here Review This epic account of Ottoman decline and the birth of modern Turkey is a tour de force of accessible scholarship Fara Dabhoiwala The Guardian Gingeras takes an even handed approach to each issue while never making light of the horrendous tally of human suffering that emerges on every side Turks have long been treated to an over simplified account of their modern history This book teaches the beginning of wisdom which is that most human history as it actually happened was a terrible bewildering mess Noel Malcolm The Telegraph In his impressive centenary history Ryan Gingeras recounts not just the death throes of the old realm but the painful emergence of Turkey as a nation state It is a complicated story that still reverberates under Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Gingeras narrates it with lucid authority Michael Prodger New Statesman Dispassionate and well researched Gingeras sets out the twisting turning story of decline through the later part of the 19th century Peter Frankopan Financial Times Fruitful reflections on the enduring cultural legacy of the Ottomans how their empire ended and what was lost when it did brings a welcome human lens to the story of the empire s disintegration Vanessa H Larson Washington Post