Books in the A History of the Near East series

"The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule assesses the effects of Ottoman rule on the Arab Lands of Egypt, Greater Syria, Iraq and Yemen between 1516 and 1800."--

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Near East underwent profound changes. Most obviously these were political: after six hundred years of pre-eminence the Ottoman Empire collapsed, to be replaced by several smaller states in South-East Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. An account of the period.

The rise of Constantinople and the later Ottoman Empire are well known, less well understood are the three centuries in between. This book poses the questions, what led to the decline of the Byzantine Empire and what happened in the intervening years before the rise of the Ottomans?

Primarily a political history, but also containing summaries of economic and social change in the region since World War I, this excellent survey of the Middle East also covers Turkey, Iran and Arabia.

Peter Holt uses, and to some extent reinterprets, the medieval Arabic sources, to present a picture which differs in important respects from the conventional western-orientated view.