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RR 2013/075 Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire (2nd edition) Selcuk Aksin Somel Scarecrow Press Lanham, MD and Plymouth 2012 lxxii + 495pp. ISBN 978 0 8108 7168 7 (print); ISBN 978 0 8108 7097 0 (e-book) £75 $120
Historical Dictionaries of Ancient Civilizations and Historical Eras
Keywords Dictionaries, History, Middle East Turkey
Review DOI 10.1108/09504121311300613
Much of recorded history consists of the growth of massive empires in the heartland of Central Asia and the corresponding development of defensive empires in the peripheral areas of India, China, Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, either in an attempt to hold back their incursions or established as a result of their successful invasions. Examples of the defensive category might include the Roman Empire, the Ming Dynasty in China or, more recently, the Russian Empire. Examples of successful invaders include the Mughal Empire in India, the Manchus in China, and, to our point, the Ottomans in the Eastern Mediterranean.
What is surprising about the Turks was how few of them there were. Following the death of Mohammed the Arabs very rapidly conquered a massive empire, but then, equally rapidly, seemed to run out of steam. They hired a small army of barbarian Turcoman mercenaries, who, in a remarkably short space of time, took over the leadership of Islam - rather as though the Ghurkhas, say, had taken over the British Empire in 1910. The Byzantine successors to the Roman Empire had attempted to hold off the Arab invasion but were driven with religious dissent - many Christian communities welcomed the Muslim conquerors as being more tolerant of their particular beliefs than their fellow Christians; orthodox Constantinople was brutally conquered by the catholic crusaders of Western Europe and, though it managed to expel them within a few years, never regained the strength to withstand a further invasion. The armies of Islam, led by the Turks, conquered the city in 1453, and then swept up into Eastern Europe until finally held back by another defensive empire at the gates of Vienna.
The empire thus acquired by a small army leadership was already densely populated. There were Armenians in the northeast. The eastern highlands were inhabited...