A review by squotle
The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs by Marc David Baer

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.75

Covering roughly 800 years of history is no easy feat and things can understandably get some short shrift and the details maybe won’t fully sink in (also, I read slow) but I thought Baer did a good job hammering home his larger argument and providing an easy to follow narrative of the big changes in the empire over time. I wanted to read this book because I only had very basic knowledge of the Ottoman Empire. So often in western history it’s portrayed as a looming threat on the periphery; this shows how false that narrative is.