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Sultan Abdülhamid II (r. 1876-1909) is without doubt one of the most controversial and enigmatic figures of the Ottoman 19th century. The "Red Sultan" for some, the "Grand Ruler" for others, he is clearly the "Last Sultan" who ruled as well as reigned. His successors, Mehmet V and Vahdettin, were nothing more than figureheads who had only symbolic power during the Young Turk era and World War I. The thirty-three years of Abdülhamid II's reign remain the most critical period in recent history, not only for Turkey, but for most of the successor states.
François Georgeon has finally given us an admirable biography that combines the life story of the man with the history of his era. If one remembers that the last biography of Abdülhamid was published in 1958 (Joan Haslip's The Sultan ), one appreciates that this book is long overdue. Starting with the sultan's childhood, a subject doomed to the twilight zone of rumor and hearsay because of the notorious lack of hard data on the private lives of Ottoman rulers, the writer manages to give us a book of rare quality.
One cannot think of Abdülhamid without his "foil," Midhat Pasa, the great reformer and the sultan's archrival. Pasa, usually considered the paragon of democracy and liberalism, appears here in a different light. Vain and imperious, he was outmaneuvered by the sultan, who managed to make him appear as the primary bulwark against reforms demanded by the foreign powers. Thus, the last of the Tanzimat liberals was dispensed with, and the stage was set for the era of personal rule, or "Hamidian despotism," as it came to be known. Nevertheless, Georgeon...