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Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire
 
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Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire (Paperback)

by Jason Goodwin (Author)
3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Picador USA (Jan 2003)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0312420668
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312420666
  • Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14 x 2.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,974,496 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

The New York Times

A work of dazzling beauty...the rare coming together of historical scholarship and curiosity about distant places with luminous writing. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Description

The Ottoman Empire has exerted a long, strong pull on Western minds and hearts. Over six hundred years the Empire swelled and declined; the royal line bent, but never broke, from Osman, born in a desert tent around 1280 to Abdul Mecid, dying in a Paris flat in 1942. Its precipitous rise from a dusty fiefdom in the foothills of Anatolia to a power which ruled on the Danube and the Euphrates stunned contemporaries.For three hundred years it held sway and Istanbul had the richest court in Europe. But the decline was prodigious, protracted, and total. Dramatic and passionate, detailed and alive, comic and gruesome, "Lords of the Horizons" charts the swirling history from the first campaigns to the Charge of the Light Brigade, from the Crusades to the Dardenelles, and brings to life innumerable aspects of Ottoman life, caravans carrying parcels of spice and bags of gold, Western emissaries witnessing executions, distant sentries on far frontiers, jewels, meals, shadow plays and stray dogs. A history, a journey, and a world all in one. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews

22 Reviews
5 star:
 (6)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
 (4)
1 star:
 (3)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.2 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars What a strange book...., 4 Mar 2003
This review is from: Lords of the Horizons : A History of the Ottoman Empire (Paperback)
I was looking for a comprehensive account of the history of the Ottoman Empire and I stepped into this book. This is a strange book. It is divided in chapters not in a chronological order, but rather by mixing up chronology and the exam of particular issues: quite strange and diverse issues, I must say, like sieges, dogs(!), houses, dresses...
Political and economic analysis are not made in depth, although the author makes here and there some very interesting remarks.On the other hand, the narration is full of funny (and sometimes scary) anecdotes, and actually the atmosphere of the Ottoman empire in its various phases is conveyed quite effectively. The chapters on the "cage", the harem and the early expansion of the Empire are excellent.
It's a good reading, in the end, althoug people looking for a serious, structured and reliable account of the empire should look elsewhere (Kinross?).
A final note: the language used by the author is very sophisticated and quite often (my mother tongue is not english) I've needed a dictionary....and sometimes I couldn't even find in the dictionary some of the nouns and adjectives used by the author!!
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, 20 April 2006
This review is from: Lords of the Horizons : A History of the Ottoman Empire (Paperback)
I bought this book to read on my recent trip to Turkey, to help give me some historical context, but I was sorely disappointed.

I know a little bit of history about a lot of places as well has having a fairly detailed knowledge of some subjects (I have a history degree) but I knew very little about Turkey so I hoped that this book would give me a quick overview.

Unfortunately the structure of the book didn't give me any kind of historical perspective; it didn't really talk about events or the causes of events. I wanted to understand how the Turks came to form the Ottoman empire, how they held it together. I wanted to understand the personalities of its rulers and their impact on events so that when I saw their portraits in the Topkapi Palace I had some appreciation of who they actually were.

In short, it is not a history book as such, more a collection of cultural and historical snapshots. I felt that to really get the best out of this book the reader would need to have a fairly good basic grounding in Ottoman history. Sadly, I still don't!
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars A lightweight introduction to Ottoman History, 3 Nov 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Lords of the Horizons : A History of the Ottoman Empire (Paperback)
This is a somewhat impressionistic history of the Ottoman Empire and might make a good introduction for a reader new to the topic. It does have the significant advantage that the writer obviously likes Turkey and the Turks and that his enthusiasm for this wonderful nation is communicated itself through the page. This reviewer found the book pleasant and entertaining reading in its earlier sections but by the time one gets half way the style begins to irritate and one wishes for something more substantial. This said, the first-time visitor to Turkey would be well advised to pack this work in his luggage along with John Freely's "Istanbul: The Imperial City". The latter, as well as providing an excellent guide-section, has short but readable accounts of the reigns of every Sultan and of their Byzantine predecessors. As such it complements Mr.Goodwin's book excellently.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars A work of art
This is not a history in the proper sense - you'll probably get that idea from the other reviews, to be honest. Read more
Published 2 months ago by C. Flaherty

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good (though not a 'history')
I actually read this book twice, and after the first reading was disappointed. I had expected to get a traditional (for lack of a better word) 'history': a chronological overview... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Didier

4.0 out of 5 stars You call this history?
1993 John Llewellyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday Prize winning travel writer Jason Goodwin built on his studies of Byzantine history at Cambridge University and laid the foundation for his... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Mutt

1.0 out of 5 stars Informative but incredibly dry
This book was quite informative, but exremely dry. I am an absolute history freak and read history books constantly. Read more
Published on 23 Oct 2007 by Gordon Eldridge

2.0 out of 5 stars A haphazard miscellany
This book disappointed me. Trailed as a history, I expected something more robust than what seemed to me to be a collection of jottings from the author's limited library... Read more
Published on 12 Oct 2006 by P. D. G. Tompkins

1.0 out of 5 stars A collection of essays rather than a history book
The book is written by a journalist who apparantly knows his subject well. However, somehow he fails to make the story interesting and readable. Read more
Published on 21 Mar 2006 by Heino Viik

2.0 out of 5 stars No,No,No.
This book seems to have been written with the assumption that the reader already knows most of the history of the Ottoman Empire,and the Author is simply embellishing certain... Read more
Published on 18 Oct 2004 by Chesty Morgan

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't even bother
This book may well be beautifully written, in fact it is almost poetic in its turn of phrase and expression. Read more
Published on 18 Mar 2004

3.0 out of 5 stars As rambling as the Ottoman empire itself!
This is an exploration of the Ottoman cultural psyche rather than a history. Goodwin plays up the exotic aspects. Read more
Published on 25 May 2003 by G. Coldham

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting subject, annoying style
This book is provides a good overview of Ottoman history, but does suffer from the stylistic conceits of the author. Read more
Published on 13 Oct 2002 by clairefromwales

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