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34 reviews for:
God's Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World
Alan Mikhail
3.85 AVERAGE
34 reviews for:
God's Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World
Alan Mikhail
3.85 AVERAGE
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
dark
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Hate crime, Violence, Murder, War
Moderate: Slavery
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
A Very enjoyable look at the 1400/1500’s from the view of the Ottomans. I particularly enjoyed the cultural insights as well as the influence of the Ottomans on Western Europe.
Big bad history that happens to be a looming blind spot in my understanding of the world.
informative
medium-paced
I learned a lot, I enjoyed reading, and Mikhail's writing is very nice. Indeed, there are two good books in here - one a biography of Ottoman Sultan Selim (the Grim), and one an interrogation of the minimisation of the impact of Muslim influences and agents on Western history, particularly Reformation / age-of-exploration history. I'm not convinced either was best served by smashing the two together, and the shifting between the two focuses often felt jarring or contrived. Often the connections were tenuous or general, and while the two themes offered interesting context for each other, they never really felt like they were building each other, or working together to something bigger. (The final chapter, titled "American Selim", mentioned Selim only the once in a reference that felt like a significant reach, but instead talked a lot about Muslims in general in America. I really don't know that the two are conflatable.)
informative
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced