INTERVIEW: Douglas Howard on his history of the Ottoman Empire

Recently published by Cambridge University Press, "A History of the Ottoman Empire" by Douglas Howard, Professor of History at Calvin College in Michigan, is the first single-volume history of the Ottomans to appear in a number of years. 

In little over 300 pages, the book (reviewed in HDN here) covers more than 600 years of history - from the empire's 13th century origins in the Balkans and western Anatolia to its protracted, violent dissolution at the start of the 20th century. 

The Ottoman ruling family enjoyed the longest span of uninterrupted dynastic sovereignty in world history, but it also had to contend with huge upheavals - wars, mutinies, scandals, riots, disasters, and epidemics.

The empire was essentially a pre-modern state that managed to persist for so long through reform and skillful geopolitical maneuvering. The book gives the grand sweep of Ottoman history but it is also punctuated by boxes and appendices giving useful detours on various other points of interest - cultural products, travelogues, Sufi poetry, and memoirs.

Howard spoke to the Hürriyet Daily News about the book and what he learned while researching it.

Why write the book at this time? 

I had in mind the idea of writing a book like this from when I was a graduate student. I was interested in the challenge of writing a history of the Ottoman Empire in a single volume, but I didn't start until Cambridge came to me to ask if I'd be interested in the project. So it was really the publisher's idea that the time was right. I'd written a history of Turkey before, which perhaps showed an interest in a narrative sort of approach.

You had to cover a 600-year plus sweep of history over an...

Continue reading on: