The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire by Alan R. Palmer (1993, Hardcover)

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The Ottoman Empire was almost 600 years old when it finally collapsed after WW1, and at its peak had covered large parts of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. The surprising part is how long the collapse took – the Empire had been known as “The Sick Man of Europe” since the 17^th century – but it took a conflagration like WWI, the occupation of the country by Greece, and the eventual rise of Kemel Attaturk as supreme ruler, to put the last nails in the Empire’s coffin. This emininently readable book by historian Alan Palmer looks at the last 200 years or so of its existence, and the internal tensions that finally led to its demise. If its history proves nothing else, it is that all empires come to an end, and like the Roman Empire before it, its collapse left a vacuum in the Middle East that other countries made a vain attempt to fill, with results that still plague us today. A very well written overview of a major sea-change in world affairs – highly recommended. This 1993 Hardcover is in very good condition, with no internal markings other than some script on the fly leaf, and a dust jacket in a mylar sheath.