The Ottoman Empire

Children's Literature

In American cartoons, the grand vizier is usually the bad guy trying to wrest power from a sultan. In actuality, he was a very well educated adviser to sultans in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire lasted almost five centuries and at its height, stretched from the furthest edges of what is now Saudi Arabia to the Caspian Sea and west to Austria, Egypt and North Africa. The straight history is dry, but the wealth of details about daily life and culture in the Ottoman Empire is fascinating, especially as the reader comes to realize how much the West actually adopted and adapted from the Turks: the Ottoman government secured and regulated trade, established guilds to represent workers and tradesman, and organized an elaborate network of "caravanserais" or hostels for merchants on their long east-west journeys. There are excellent illustrations—past and present—of Istanbul's Grand Bazaar, which directly inspired our own shopping malls. There are details of ancient Turkish crafts such as weaving carpets, turning Arabic script into elaborate art to decorate mosques, and painting details of everyday life in brilliant miniature paintings. There are numerous interesting sidebars (did you know tulips came to the Netherlands from the Turks?) and explanations for some of the social customs we attribute to Islam: the seclusion of women, rather than making them second-class citizens, was a status symbol showing a woman had servants to run her errands. A few more maps would have been helpful, but the glossary is excellent and there are enough interesting details to keep the text moving and reading easily. The "Cultures of the Past" series includes many cultures ignored for far too long by Americans,including the African Kingdom of Kush, India's Gupta Dynasty, Mesopotamia and China's Tang Dynasty. 2003, Marshall Cavendish,
— Karen Leggett

School Library Journal

Gr 6-9-These titles cover the rise and fall of the Byzantine Empire and the subsequent domination of the Ottoman Turks. In the first book, the author describes the history, culture, religion, and influences of the empire that lasted from the 4th to the 15th century. The second title traces the nomadic origins of the earliest Turks to the dominance of the Ottomans in the 13th century, the height of power during the reign of Soleyman I in the 16th century, to the dissolution of the empire in 1922. The culture, religion, social system and influence of the Ottomans are also discussed. Both of these informative overviews are clearly written and well organized. Good-quality, attractive, full-color photographs and reproductions of artwork appear throughout both volumes. Well-researched, useful additions for any collection.-Cynthia M. Sturgis, Ledding Library, Milwaukie, OR Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.