Turkey Booktalk Archives

Prisoner of the Infidels: The Memoir of an Ottoman Muslim in Seventeenth-Century Europe

A pioneering work of Ottoman Turkish literature, Prisoner of the Infidels brings the seventeenth-century memoir of Osman Agha of Timişoara—slave, adventurer, and diplomat—into English for the first time. The sweeping story of Osman’s life begins upon his capture and subsequent enslavement during the Ottoman–Habsburg Wars. Adrift in a landscape far from his home and traded from one master to another, Osman tells a tale of indignation and betrayal but also of wonder and resilience, punctuated with queer trysts, back-alley knife fights, and elaborate ruses to regain his freedom. […Learn More]

The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs

This major new history of the Ottoman dynasty reveals a diverse empire that straddled East and West.

The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic, Asian antithesis of the Christian, European West. […Learn More]

God’s Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World

Long neglected in world history, the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor, geopolitical power, and enlightened pluralistic rule. At the height of their authority in the sixteenth century, the Ottomans, with extraordinary military dominance and unparalleled monopolies over trade routes, controlled more territory and ruled over more people than any world power, forcing Europeans out of the Mediterranean and to the New World. […Learn More]

Erdogan’s Empire

Gradually since 2003, Turkey’s autocratic leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sought to make Turkey a great power — in the tradition of past Turkish leaders from the late Ottoman sultans to Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. Here the leading authority Soner Cagaptay, author of The New Sultan — the first biography of President Erdogan — provides a masterful overview of the power politics in the Middle East and Turkey’s place in it. […Learn More]