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This original study of pre-modern Middle East history, provides fascinating new information about the conflict relations between the two great Muslim empires, the Ottomans and the Mamluks, and military confrontations between Eastern medieval armies.
This volume is a collection of studies by leading historians on central aspects of the Mamluk Empire of Egypt and Syria (1250-1517), and of Ottoman Egypt (16th-18th century) where the Mamluks survived under the Ottoman suzerainty.
Making use of legal and historical sources, Viorel Panaite analyzes the status of tribute-payers from the north of the Danube with reference to Ottoman law of peace and war. He deals with the impact of Ottoman holy war and the way conquest in Southeast Europe took place; the role of temporary covenants, imperial diplomas and customary norms in outlining the rights and duties of the tributary princes; the power relations between the Ottoman Empire and the tributary-protected principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania. He also focuses on the legal and political methods applied to extend the pax ottomanica system in the area, rather than on the elements that set these territories apart from the rest of the Ottoman Empire.
For 15 years the name of Isser Harel, the man in charge of all the intelligence branches of Israel, was top secret in Israel. Even when he resigned from office in March 1963 his name and picture remained undisclosed. Only in 1965, when he was appointed special adviser on intelligence and security to Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, were his name and picture revealed. But most of his past feats were still kept secret, even when stories about underground activities, the capture of a spy, or a mission abroad were disclosed. Alan Dulles, head of the CIA, declared at the time, “the Israeli services are the best in the world”. For what operations did the Israeli services deserve such credit? What was their modus operandi? How had they been established and developed? How did they conceive rules of ethics and morality? These questions and many more are answered in this book, which reveals the life story and operations of Isser Harel, whom David Ben-Gurion called “the guardian of Israel’s secrets and honor”.
This book presents a collection of essays charting the developments in military practice and warfare across the world in the early modern period. It also considers the nature and role of technological change, and the relationship between military developments and state-building.
Kaya Şahin's book offers a revisionist reading of Ottoman history during the reign of Süleyman the Magnificent (1520–66). By examining the life and works of a bureaucrat, Celalzade Mustafa, Şahin argues that the empire was built as part of the Eurasian momentum of empire building and demonstrates the imperial vision of sixteenth-century Ottomans. This unique study shows that, in contrast with many Eurocentric views, the Ottomans were active players in European politics, with an imperial culture in direct competition with that of the Habsburgs and the Safavids. Indeed, this book explains Ottoman empire building with reference to the larger Eurasian context, from Tudor England to Mughal India, contextualizing such issues as state formation, imperial policy and empire building in the period more generally. Şahin's work also devotes significant attention to the often-ignored religious dimension of the Ottoman-Safavid struggle, showing how the rivalry redefined Sunni and Shiite Islam, laying the foundations for today's religious tensions.
This volume analyzes historical processes of mobility by focusing on material objects. Mobility—as a shorthand for various related processes such as migration, transfer, entanglement, and translation—involves human actors, immaterial elements such as ideas and knowledge, but also objects in various forms and functions. For example, as material infrastructures they are the basis for transport and travel; as goods they are the object and purpose of trade or gift exchange. By focusing on the way objects determined certain processes of mobility and how their social meaning and materiality was transformed in these processes, the contributors hope to gain deeper insight into the historical relations between the Ottoman Empire, Eastern Europe, and Persia.
This collection of essays discusses the rich and varied tradition of history writing in mediaeval and early modern Egypt, providing new insights into the works and the lives and outlooks of their authors.