Reorienting an empire

The Ottomans leaves the reader with much to ponder on how societies viewed each other in an era of emerging uber-nationalism where religion was the key marker of belonging

The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars and Caliphs

Author: Marc David Baer

Publisher: Hachette

Pages: 543

Price: Rs 799

A visitor to Istanbul would be struck by the blend of European and Asian culture that makes Turkey one of the most attractive countries to visit. Before Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to Islamicise this boisterously multicultural polity, Turkey’s syncretism was attributed to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who salvaged the heartland of a disintegrating empire and dragged it into a modern European-focused era.

Ataturk’s aggressive nationalist Europeanising project was regarded with warm approval as a civilising mission of a backward polity by European powers wallowing in their rising global