Book Description
The dramatic history of an empire that shaped the modern world in the first authoritative account written for general readers
According to the Ottoman chronicles, the first sultan, Osman, had a dream in which a tree emerged fully formed from his navel "and its shade compassed the world"-symbolizing the vast empire he and his descendants were destined to forge. His vision was soon realized: At its height, the Ottoman realm extended from Hungary to the Persian Gulf, from North Africa to the Caucasus.
The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and most influential empires in world history. For centuries, Europe watched with fear as the Ottomans steadily advanced their rule across the Balkans. Yet travelers and merchants were irresistibly drawn toward Ottoman lands by their fascination with the Orient and the lure of profit.
Although it survived for over six centuries, the history of the Ottoman Empire is too often colored by the memory of its bloody final throes. In this magisterial work Caroline Finkel lucidly recounts the epic story of the Ottoman Empire from its origins in the thirteenth century through its destruction on the battlefields of World War I.
"Caroline Finkel effortlessly conveys the high drama of Ottoman history." (Orhan Pamuk)
Customer Reviews:
Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire.......2006-08-02
An excellent book. Very readable. A great way to compress six centuries of the great Ottoman Empire in a relatively short space. Finally the truth about Ottomans are emerging from the pens of eminent scholars, instead of garbage spewn by Armenians, Greeks, and some European powers that vied for Ottoman territories and resources for their own colonial purposes. I hate to see armenian-Americans to unfairly degrade a book that is truthful or complimentary to the great Ottoman Empire. Hope these folks grow up soon. I will not stoop to their level and demean the authors that put out lies about the "poor" armenians. Great job Caroline.
Shallow political history.......2006-07-11
I was quite disappointed by this book - its like a 19th century history with a shallow retelling of the names of Sultans, dates and major battles. I would have expected a greater analysis of the socio-cultural milieu in which the Ottoman empire arose and the institutions it spawned. I kept reading on hoping that this would follow but its really just a chronological listing of sultans, the major battles fought - if you want a political history of the empire, this may work for you. But when, why not just read the Wikipedia entry if you have no interest in the socio-political institutions.
Solid.......2006-06-20
This is a decent survey of Ottoman history. In many ways, this is traditional history from above, mainly a political history concentrating on the ups and downs of the reigns of the Ottoman Sultans. Finkel does well in constructing the basic narrative, covering centuries of Ottoman history in solid prose. The complicated dynastic politics of several periods are covered well. Finkel makes a less successful attempt to integrate social and economic history. She describes different phases of social and demographic history in the Empire as related to the political history but rarely provides enough detail to be satisfactory. For example, she mentions the declining Muslim population of the 19th century empire but never describes the size of the population or whether this was an absolute or relative decline. In many sections, she devotes more text to architectural history than relevant economic or social history. This book is largely descriptive and useful on that basis. As a basic political history, it will probably be useful for many, but its analytic shortcomings make its utility limited.
Good core, fuzzy edges.......2006-05-27
This is one more book about Ottoman history, a subject which lately semms to have become fashionable. As a general outline of the Empire's history it is pretty good, mentioning all important events, and doing so from an Ottoman perspective. This last is significant, as traditional histories tend to adopt an anti-Turkish approach by default. I have given this book 3 stars because it omits no serious events, because of the fact that it narrates them from the Ottoman viewpoint and because it utilises many sources, including Ottoman ones.
I have declined givng the last two stars because of two problems: One, many institutions and events are treated superficially or have an inaccurate description -- there is litle depth and often further research reveals the summary presented by the author to be the truth but by no means the whole truth. (or the most important part thereof -- although this also depends on what one considers to be the most important aspect of an event).
The second problem is one endemic to US/English scholarly work:
All too often, the sources cited, though numerous, turn out to consist of english-language bibliography plus some sources from the culture/people being studied. In this case the bibliography consists of Ottoman and english language sources. Yet when writing history it is oftem critical to examine the writings of a people's neighbors and enemies as well. This is sadly lacking here, the author seems not to be aware of contemporary Greek, Italian, Persian or Russian sources. An example: in discussing te 1821 Greek revolt, the author states that it is not clear whether Prince Ypsilantis's Moldavian adventure was undertaken in coordination with the Morea rebels. Yet anyone with elementary knowledge of contemorary greek writings on the issue cannot help but be aware that coordination did exist and in fact the whole point of the Moldavian affair was to provide at worst a diversion for Ottoman troops and at best cause a Russo-Turkish war.
One last thing, an appeal to my fellow Greeks, concerning reviews who give the book one star because it ignores how evil vicious and subhuman the Turks are: Can we PLEASE grow up and stop demonizing the Turks? Yes the author does not mention the Armenian genocide and the pogroms at the Ottoman Greeks expense as forcefully as many of us might have liked, but the way to draw attention to these omissions is NOT by blatantly exaggerating Turkish "cruelty" or the number of people who fell victim of the upheavals at the end of WWI. Stop automatically denigrating everything that may disagree with "our" POV!
Osman's Dream.......2006-05-12
The last years shelved a handful of new books that revise and overview the Ottoman history from construction to demise. Goodwin's Lord of the Horizons, Faroqhi's the Ottoman Empire and the World Around it, or Imber's the Ottoman Empire 1300-1600 already gave professors a hand with their survey cirrucula.
In similar vein though Osman's dream may be, it further serves with its lucid style as the most updated and reiterative (same-old-story-rehashing) work written in the field.
Major problems that Ottomanists have long discussed such as on periodization, methods of conquest, role of dervishes, the reverberation of tensions between center-province-local, the f/actors that in effect changed/stabilized the Ottoman trajectory deserve a better place than mere explication of the symptoms and diagnosis come forward earlier.
I do not agree with Nikephorus Phokas (a customer that previously reviewed the book) on grounds that Osman's Dream ignores the Genocide: not advertently. As a matter of fact, it seems to me that Finkel undertook her work as unpolemical and selective as possible. There are many other issues she does not touch on as she accepts honestly.
My recommend to a reader would be that s/he complement Osman's Dream with other works in the field, particularly Findley's Turks in World History and Quataert's Ottoman Empire 1700-1922. And, keep in mind that this work appeals primarily to general readers and in some ways to those that want to refresh their factual knowledge on this vast chunk of history.
There is no reason to be cynical in Osman's Dream's overall success. I am not, still, expecting a Hofstadter to write an Ottoman Age of Reform, a Foner "Ottoman's Unfinished Revolution", or a letter-day Bloch "Ottoman Middle Ages". This work may well place the history of the Ottoman Empire into a broader historical template, better than others that try hard to integrate it to the European history.
Book Description
The name Hershey evokes many things: chocolate bars, the company town in Pennsylvania, one of America's most recognizable brands. But who was the man behind the name? In this compelling biography, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael D'Antonio gives us the real-life rags-to-riches story of Milton S. Hershey, a largely uneducated businessman whose idealistic sense of purpose created an immense financial empire, a town, and a legacy that lasts to this day.
Hershey, the son of a minister's daughter and an irresponsible father who deserted the family, began his career inauspiciously when the two candy shops he opened both went bankrupt. Undeterred, he started the Lancaster Caramel Company, which brought him success at last. Eventually he sold his caramel operation and went on to perfect the production process of chocolate to create a stable, consistent bar with a long shelf life...and an American icon was born.
Hershey was more than a successful businessman -- he was a progressive thinker who believed in capitalism as a means to higher goals. He built the world's largest chocolate factory and a utopian village for his workers on a large tract of land in rural Pennsylvania, and used his own fortune to keep his workers employed during the Great Depression. In addition, he secretly willed his fortune to a boys' school and orphanage, both of which now control a vast endowment.
Extensively researched and vividly written, Hershey is the fascinating story of this uniquely American visionary.
Download Description
"This first-ever, major biography of an American icon paints a vivid picture of what Milton S. Hershey accomplished as the ultimate progressive businessman. Hershey's life suggests a kind of capitalism that seems warmer, and more personal. He was a gambler, raconteur, despot, and servant. And he stands as a rare, and perhaps unique, example of ambition, altruism, ego, and humility.
Customer Reviews:
Hershey:, the legend and the man.......2007-06-15
Michael D'Antonio has given us a serious biography of a complicated, but highly admirable, man. A "chocolate king" who founded a town and created and endowed schools and home for orphans is not a figure to be treated lightly, and D'Antonio does not fail. While there is no question that D'Antonio likes his subject, Hershey is not given a free pass. His enormous philanthropy is described right alongside irrational temper tantrums and firings. Spying on worker's drinking habits is described alongside his own gambling habits. The rise of the Hersey empire, and the town he founded, is described in great detail. The book opens with the drama of a challenge to the Trust of his school for orphans and the reality of business in this day and age. "What would Milton do?" is the question. What the book tells us is that it is by no means certain what Milton would do. He had contemplated selling his empire at more than one point, ensuring the resources for the continued care of the orphans in his charge. We see the rise and life of the Hershey empire, and Milton's relationships with others. The possibility of the true nature of his wife's illness is mentioned and described. Some have been offended by this, I'd suggest they get over it. It has no bearing on what type of person she was, or how much he loved her. We see the evolution of the business, the international interests, the town and school. It is a satisfying read. The only additional material I would have liked is some more description of Hershey's interactions with some of the other business and political leaders of the day. We are told of a feud with Wrigley, and the suspicion that Wrigley had cheated in gambling, but little else. We know of TR's trust busting, and that Hershey was considered to be quite apart from the Robber Barons of the day. Did TR and Hershey ever interact beyond the one or two mentioned invitations? If so, how? This historical information may not exist in the archives, but was the only gap I felt while reading.
As Good as Chocolate.......2007-05-25
"This book is almost as good as the chocolate bar. This biography of Milton S. Hershey and the chocolate company shows how hard work, ingenuity, and just plain luck produced the world's largest chocolate factory. The only thing that would have made this book better would have been a free sample of the product."
A truly sweet biography of the chocolate king.......2007-04-03
Michael D' Antonio has written a wonderful biography of Milton S. Hershey, the man who became a multi-millionaire by making milk chocolate a five-cent treat in the United States.
Very much to his credit, D' Antonio delivers a biography of a complex man from another era without super-imposing contemporary politically correct value judgments. D' Antonio deserves a gold star or two for that.
Milton Hershey's life is not an easy one to document; he was not an overtly public man. Rather, he led two lives. The first as reservd tycoon in his native Pennsylvania locale, the other as a a sometimes free-spending bon vivant traveling the United States, Europe and Cuba.
D' Antonio chronicles Hershey's beginnings with his stern, no-nonsense mother with her Mennonite background and Milton's dreamy, never successful father. Backed with the unwavering faith of his mother and aunt and funds from his extended family, Milton pursued a career in confectionary. One business failure followed another, but Milton's faith in himself never faltered. Then he discovered caramels - and became the caramel king. Working with clearly limited resources, D' Antonio weaves an interesting story of an interesting man that becomes still more interesting when Hershey sees that the caramel market is limited.
He sells out and could have easily retired to a life of luxurious ease.
He had surprised everyone and married Catherine Sweeney, some fifteen years younger, whose actual background remains a mystery. She may, according to some, have been a "working girl".
Though rich, Hershey pursued the dream of creating an inexpensive milk chocolate candy - and through native ingenuity and peristence succeeded. He built a multi-million dollar business that at one time controlled more than 90% of the U.S. market.
The story of Hershey is fascinating. He built a town, Hershey PA, incorporating his utopian beliefs - and it worked. He created a sugar empire in Cuba that almost bankrupted him. He set up a unique orphanage and then endowed it with all his wealth. He was a mercurial man who could fire long-time employees in a moment of pique. He overlooked the failings of favorites.
But no one (except perhaps some left-wing academics) could call Hershey a bad man. Almost alone among the mega-rich of the era, Hershey was animated by a true humanism and D' Antonio fully describes this without turning Hershey into a saint.
Hershey is an exceptional biography. It describes an American original, Milton S. Hershey, a self-made man who shared himself with his workers, his community and his nation. Quite a guy and he has found himself in the hands of a very competent biographer.
Jerry
Fair and balanced, but not particularly interesting.......2007-02-07
The book provides a good description of Milton Hershey's life - his early struggles, his later success, the Cuban sugar business, his generosity and the building of the community in Pennsylvania and his relationship with it. Unfortunately, Hershey gave few interviews and wrote little so everything is one step removed and heavily filtered by the Hershey public relations machine. The author does a good job trying to dig for details and paint a balanced picture, but in the end the picture of Milton Hersey is blurry and the story is not engaging.
Read like a good candy should.......2007-02-05
I enjoyed this book. It isn't what you'd call an intense read, or even a deep one; instead, I'd descibe it as pleasant. Milton Hershey really was a good man. He was ambitious, and used what he obtained from his hard work both for his own pleasure, and to make his community better. A great example of the virtues of capitalism.
D'Antonio does a delightful job in describing the city of Hershey, as well as the Hershey school. Both tributes to Milton Hershey, the industrial giant and philanthropoist.
Book Description
The twelve billion dollar cruise-ship industry caters to 10 million Americans annually on six- hundred million dollar floating cities.
In this terrifically entertaining history, Kristoffer A. Garin chronicles the cruise-ship industry, from its rise in the early sixties, to its explosion in the seventies with the hit show The Love Boat, to the current vicious consolidation wars and brazen tax dodges. Entrepreneurial genius and bare-knuckle capitalism mate with cultural kitsch as the cruise lines dodge U.S. tax, labor, and environmental laws to make unimaginable profits while bringing the world a new form of leisure.
A colorful and compelling behind-the-scenes narrative, Devils on the Deep Blue Sea is a definitive look at the industry and its robber barons who created floating empires.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting Perspective on the Cruise Business.......2007-09-17
I found this book to be a very enjoyable read. It takes you beyond the marketing collateral of the cruise lines to the full story behind the industry's birth and development. The book is a wonderful narrative of the industry's short and eventful life. The author is fairly even handed in his treatment but there are times when you can sense when he likes or dislikes his subjects.
The author's assessment of the cruise line labor policies, environmental record and negotiation with Caribbean Governments was slanted. His view comes off as wanting the cruise lines to be vehicles of social change rather than commercial enterprises. I think he fairly criticizes the cruise lines for not living up to their environmental rhetoric but if the labor conditions are so bad onboard the ships, why are the positions so prized? If the Caribbean Governments are being abused so badly in their deals with the cruise lines, why do they continue to build larger piers to accomodate more ships?
The best parts of this book deal with the business deals that created the cruise industry and the characters that were involved. I have cruised for years and reading this book gave me a better perspective on the strategies and coincidences that shaped the industry. A good read!
Great fun!.......2007-05-27
Travel agents and veteran cruisers alike will get a big kick out of this book.
It's a behind the scenes look that pulls no punches but manages to remain affectionate. Garin simply proves that you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. I certainly hope it doesn't discourage any non-cruisers from taking the plunge.
My favorite bit: Carnival's Meshulam Zonis' line, "A passenger is like a wet towel," which he illustrated by hand motions that wordlessly said, "First we squeeze them this way, then we squeeze them that way."
War ships/tankers to cruise ships....Oh My!!!.......2007-04-25
In the first chapter, Garin writes of the last day on a cruise ship which any cruiser knows is every man, woman and child for themselves....no longer are passengers royalty but more like refugees! He captures the irony of the debarking day that has always made my family chuckle as we tell stories of things we see on that last day! E.g. one poor passenger's luggage broke open outside an elevator...not one steward or other crew member offered assistance....they walked right over his strewn belongings. Anyway, Garin knows cruises and gives a wonderful history of the makings/history of the cruise industry from its humble beginnings to the big business it is today (and the two major cruise lines left). I was particularly fascinated with the evolution of the ships themselves! This was an easy read (and if a portion got dry....I skimmed!). I am cruising in 17 days...will do so with even more appreciation for the experience!
If your cruise reservation is non-refundable...don't read this book.......2007-02-06
I picked this up after enjoying his Harper's article "On the great Ukrainian bride hunt". His writing style and my interest in critical looks at the evolution and externalities of specific industries (a la Fast Food Nation) made this an amusing & informative read. And the long odds that I'd ever go on a cruise got even longer.
An even treatment with a fascinating storyline..........2006-09-03
Being a vacationer who has been on numerous cruises, this book recommendation looked like a certain fit... Devils On The Deep Blue Sea by Kristoffer A. Garin. He does a very good job in revealing how the cruise industry works, and the forces that have shaped it along the way.
The story starts in the late 1950's, when the cruise industry was really nothing more than a way to transport passengers from one location to another. The rich often had a lavish experience, while the "steerage" passengers were cramped and confined to the lower decks with restrictions on where they could go and what they could do. But in both cases, it was still a case of traveling from point A to point B. The airline industry quickly made cruise ships obsolete for rapid travel, and the shipping lines were becoming a footnote in history. But a few people thought that cruising could become a destination in itself, a way to vacation, see other lands, and then return to where you started. But the appeal had to be broad, and the luxuries of first class had to extend to all the passengers. Thru visionaries, financial risks, and mergers, what we have today is a $13 billion dollar industry that is truly global in numerous aspects. But behind the glitter and glamour, there are some less appealing items of interest...
Garin talks about how the cruise industry is largely staffed by impoverished workers from third-world nations who sign on for low base wages and whatever tips come from passengers. To many of us, these base wages wouldn't even support poverty, but they are considerable in the countries where the workers come from. The hours and rules aboard ship are harsh, with 12 to 16 hour days with little time off the norm. The industry also pays little in the way of taxes due to their ship registration being out of country to take advantage of international treaties preventing retaliatory fees. The laws and rights of the United States are not always in play either, as the ship is actually foreign territory. And if that's not enough, many of the tourist destinations are unable to get additional fees from the industry to support their infrastructure, as the industry will threaten to pull out of the port and destroy their tourism. It can be capitalism at its worst...
Personally, this book was better than I expected. I thought it was going to be a muck-raking, "boycott cruises" diatribe, and one that I wouldn't necessarily agree with. But the balance between the story of the cruise lines and the less-savory parts of the industry was just about right. And even the "expose" part wasn't hypercritical. I came away understanding the abuses, but (in many cases) understanding both sides of the issues. And really, it's not much different than what most other industries would do in the same circumstances...
Yes, I'm still going to go on cruises, and I'll still enjoy them. But I'll be even more considerate of the staff that makes it all work, and more in awe of what it takes to pull off the experience, week after week after week...
Amazon.com
Amid the sand and rock of Central Asia, Russia and England spent much of the 19th century playing what historians have come to call the Great Game: the struggle for control over transcontinental routes from Europe to the Far East. When the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, Lenin continued to press Russian--now Soviet--claims to faraway, fabled places such as Samarkand and Hotan. The intrigues of his agents and their British counterparts, swashbucklers all, could come from a modern spy novel, and they make for fascinating reading in Peter Hopkirk's vivid account.
Book Description
A DANGEROUS NEW TWIST IN THE GREAT GAME
In this gripping narrative Peter Hopkirk tells how Lenin and his revolutionary comrades tried, in the period between the two world wars, to set the East ablaze with their heady new gospel of Marxism. Their dream was to "liberate" the whole of Asia, and their starting point was British India, the
richest of all imperial possessions.
The bloody struggle that ensued, the full story of which has never been told, marked a dramatic new twist in the Great Game. Among the players were British Indian intelligence officers and the armed revolutionaries of the Communist International. There were also Muslim visionaries and Chinese
warlords-as well as a White Russian baron who roasted his Bolshevik captives alive.
Pieced together from secret archives, intelligence reports, and the long-forgotten memoirs of the players involved, here is an extraordinary tale of intrigue and treachery. Like Hopkirk's bestselling The Great Game, its theme is ominously topical in view of the violent events that still grip this
turbulent region-from the Caucasus to Afghanistan-where the Great Game never really ended.
Customer Reviews:
Another great installment.......2006-12-15
Peter Hopkirk's third installment of the Great game is as masterful as the first two. Lenin's drive to take over the central Asian territories and hold the oil there inspires a true terror of what the great game had evolved into. From continuing intrigued in Afghanistan to the development of Iran as a major actor in the region come directly from this time period. The great game is one of the most interesting events in history and no one tells it better than Hopkirk. You will not believe that this book is true by the time you are done. It is utterly amazing what people will do for their countries when they are called upon to serve. The adventures of the great game should be read by everyone.
Fascinating Tales of an Obscure Piece of the Planet. .......2006-07-27
Hopkirk hooked me with his "Great Game" book, which brimmed with fascinating characters in the competition between England and Russia in Central Asia. This book is equally well-done and its players are, if anything, even more fascinating than the earlier work. You couldn't make people like this up if you were writing a novel. The way they succumbed to avarice or power and swam with or against the tide of history in a most bloody fashion is spellbinding. Hopkirk is that rare author who brings important history to us in a most palatable fashion. A great read.
Carries the story on from The Great Game--but not as well.......2002-12-29
Hopkirk is a mater story teller. Anyone who cares about how Afghanistan and the surrounding countries ended up the way they did must read The Great Game--Hopkirk's gripping description of the battle between Russia and England for control of Central Asia--a hint: they both lost.
This volume picks up the story with the Russian Revolution. Again, Hopkirk does an excellent job of out lining the players, the global politics, and how it all impacted on this traditional "crossroads of the world". Here, the focus is on Lenin, and Russia's (successful) attempt to claim/re-claim Central asia as its own.
My criticisim is that the story is not nearly as gripping as a story as was the Great Game. There are superb vignettes, but the overall narrative is simply not as good.
However, if you want to know why Russia was willing to dvote a decade (1980 to 1990) to its war in Afghanistan, which set the stage for the Taliban and Al Queda, then I know of no better book.
A Gripping Tale of the Last Stages of the Great Game!.......2002-07-28
This is an instant classic! But some of you may be wondering: what's so great about an obscure conflict in an obscure land?
For a start there's the psychopathic White Russian general, Ungern-Sternberg, the "Mad Baron", who believes himself to be the reincarnation of Genghis Khan, and who dreams of conquering Russia at the head of a Mongol army. There's Enver Pasha, the former Ottoman Minister of War recruited by the Bolsheviks, but soon betraying them in pursuit of his dream - a new Turkish empire in Central Asia. For Britain the greatest threat comes from the new Russia of Lenin and Trotsky, once more playing hard at the Great Game, eager to undermine Britain by striking at India. There are Chinese Warlords, defeated White Russian armies, Muslim rebels, bandits, an ambitious Afghan king, secret agents, Tibetan bandits, and always the possibility of a British expedition.
At the geographical centre of all this is the Chinese province of Sinkiang - a land surrounded on 3 sides by soaring mountain ranges, at its heart the world's most inhospitable desert, littered with lost cities. Between mountains and desert lies a ring of walled towns where travellers cross with a single step from an arid expanse of sand and gravel into a world of trickling streams and shady groves. Along the ancient Silk Road between the towns trudge trade caravans of camels, donkeys, huge-wheeled carts and the occasional motor car or lorry. In the towns among the narrow streets, crumbling buildings, and bustling markets Indian traders watch, sending reports back to British India...
Well, there it is, and as I have said before, you must get this book! The gripping narrative just makes you unable to put the book down until you have finished, and then it forces you to read it again! Get this book quickly!
Absolutely brilliant.......2001-10-17
One of the best books I have read in years. Possibly better than Hopkirk's original 'The Great Game'. While this is the tale of about espionage and sabotage behind enemy lines in Central Asia, it reads like an adventure novel.
The action centres around immediate aftermath of the Russian revolution, just when the new soviet state was most intent on exporting revolution to the rest of the world. Hopkirk is at his best when he introduces Russia's nemesis in Central Asia - a certain Colonel Frederick Bailey, 'Great Game' hero and butterfly collector. Totally bonkers, in a truly British way. It's so exciting that you can scarcely believe that it's true - apparently it is.
Bailey, a british agent from the Raj, is sent to Central Asia to foil Soviet attempts to expand their empire south. Along the way he evades hit squads, execution chambers and even manages to circulate amongst the enemy by joining their own secret service and working as a double agent. About half way through, Bailey evenually gets back to India and drops out of sight - much to the frustration of the Soviets, but not before one final shoot out at the border post.
Hopkirk then sets off on another romp from Moscow to the Pacific Ocean, detailing the struggle between the Whites, the Reds and their respective supporters in the international community. This time there are multiple players -: the Soviet Comintern, Indian Communists, Turkish Nationalists, White Russians, British agents fighting for the Whites and some very, very cruel members of God's creation. Everything swirls around in a vast game where everyone is out to grab what they can from the dismembered Russian empire.
Almost everyone in here will be new to most readers - with the exception of Mikhael Borodin - but that shouldn't detract from an excellent piece of story telling. This is history the way it should be written. Five Stars is five too few.
Book Description
Rethinking a key epoch in East Asian history, Hyun Ok Park formulates a new understanding of early-twentieth-century Manchuria. Most studies of the history of modern Manchuria examine the turbulent relations of the Chinese state and imperialist Japan in political, military, and economic terms. Park presents a compelling analysis of the constitutive effects of capitalist expansion on the social practices of Korean migrants in the region.
Drawing on a rich archive of Korean, Japanese, and Chinese sources, Park describes how Koreans negotiated the contradictory demands of national and colonial powers. She demonstrates that the dynamics of global capitalism led the Chinese and Japanese to pursue capitalist expansion while competing for sovereignty. Decentering the nation-state as the primary analytic rubric, her emphasis on the role of global capitalism is a major innovation for understanding nationalism, colonialism, and their immanent links in social space.
Through a regional and temporal comparison of Manchuria from the late nineteenth century until 1945, Park details how national and colonial powers enacted their claims to sovereignty through the regulation of access to land, work, and loans. She shows that among Korean migrants, the complex connections among Chinese laws, Japanese colonial policies, and Korean social practices gave rise to a form of nationalism in tension with global revolution—a nationalism that laid the foundation for what came to be regarded as North Korea’s isolationist politics.
Book Description
A path-breaking work when first published in 1973, The Southern Dream remains the standard work on attempts by the South to spread American slavery into the tropics--Cuba, Mexico, and Central America in particular--before the Civil War. Robert May shows that the South's expansionists had no more success than when they tried to extend slavery westward. As one after another of their plots failed, southern imperialists lost hope that their labor system might survive in the Union. Blaming northern Democrats and antislavery Republicans alike for their disappointed dreams, alienated southerners embraced secession as an alternative means to achieving the tropical slave empire that they craved. Had war not erupted at Fort Sumter, Confederates might have attempted to conquer the Caribbean basin.
May's book serves as an important reminder that foreign policy cannot be divorced from the writing of American history, even in regard to seemingly domestic matters like the causes of the Civil War. Contending that America's Manifest Destiny became "sectionalized" in the 1850s, he explains why southerners considered Caribbean expansion so important and shows how southerners used their clout in Washington to initiate diplomatic schemes like the notorious Ostend Manifesto and presidential attempts to buy the slaveholding island of Cuba from Spain. He also describes southern filibustering plots against Latin American domains, such as the aborted designs on Mexico of the colorful Knights of the Golden Circle and the actual invasions of Central America by native Tennessean William Walker. Walker struck a major blow for the expansion of slavery when he legalized it during his occupation of Nicaragua. Most important, May relates how Caribbean plots affected American public opinion and ignited sectional friction in congressional debates. May argues that President-elect Abraham Lincoln might have saved the Union in the winter of 1860-61, had he agreed to last minute concessions facilitating slavery's future expansion towards the tropics.
May's fascinating and often surprising account internationalized the causes of the Civil War. It should be read by anyone who wishes to understand the complex reasons why Americans came to blows with each other in 1861. This reprinting features a new preface by the author, which addresses the latest research on the Caribbean question.
Book Description
The Ottoman Empire was one of the largest and most influential empires in world history. Its reach extended to three continents and it survived for more than six centuries, but its history is too often colored by the memory of its bloody final throes on the battlefields of World War I. In this magisterial work--the first definitive account written for the general reader--renowned scholar and journalist Caroline Finkel lucidly recounts the epic story of the Ottoman Empire from its origins in the thirteenth century through its destruction in the twentieth.
Customer Reviews:
Too Much Information .......2007-09-23
Osman's Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire
By Caroline Finkel
*** Too Much Information
As important as the Ottoman Empire is to an understanding of modern history, this ambitious and comprehensive book fails to put it into perspective.
Caroline Finkel tells us more than we need to know about the various Caliphs, Sultans and Potentates who ruled a loose collection of territory for about 500 years. It reminds me of Old Testament accounts: ... and then came along Jacob, who lived for 800 years, and begat Meshak, who begat Joseph," etc.
This book may be valuable to Middle East and Central Asian Scholars, but it is simply too dense and impenetrable for the average reader.
A Disappointing History.......2007-07-07
This is certainly a comprehensive work, covering every major event in the life of the Ottoman court and Ottoman military history.
Missing is a good discussion of why a group of tribes who were not native to the area were able to become a force capable of storming Constantinople and eventually sieging Vienna or why the Ottoman Empire declined so fast. What held the empire together and what undid it? There are hints throughout and some fleeting discussions but nothing satisfying.
Maybe the author feels some obligation to "defend" her subject. At times she writes of one Ottoman action or another, that such action was no different than that of Christian European powers. She also has a couple of shots at Bernard Lewis. Maybe she presumes the important information is known, but explanation is lacking.
Eyebrows may be raised by her treatment of the Armenian genocide. She seems to say there may have been some atrocities but maybe not as extensive as alleged. But her explanation of what happened to the victims is very brief. Sure she covers over 500 years of history in 550 pages. But if she is going to write something long, she ought to go even longer, as the topic of a genocide is one that demands more explanation.
So overall, a disappointing return for the investment of time.
nobody's business but the turks.......2005-08-27
Pitched as a comprehensive but approachable history of the Ottoman Empire this has a pretty good stab at it but is probably destined to be only be of interest to those already familiar with the subject. A bit too daunting for the general reader.
an epic story for our times.......2005-08-27
"Osman's Dream" is that rare thing, a work of groundbreaking history that is also extremely timely. This book is crucial for anyone seeking to understand relations between East and West or Turkey's place in the world today. The epic story of the Ottomans from their origins in the steppes of Central Asia to their occupation of much of Europe, this is the first book to uncover the empire's own dynamic history. The book shimmers with the splendor of the imperial court at a time when European nations were barely emerging from backwoods primitivism. Multiracial, multicultural, multinational, for much of its history the Ottoman empire exceeded Europe in religious tolerance and cultural richness. Caroline Finkel's beautifully written narrative challenges from the ground up the orthodoxies and stereotypes that haunt popular views of the Ottomans and the Turks. Everybody who was fascinated by the "Turks" exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London (2005) should buy and read this book. It is a sophisticated synthesis of the best new scholarship and of original archival research, with lessons for today's contentious nationalisms at every turn.
Book Description
Britain’s pursuit of empire seems an inexorable march across continents toward its ultimate—if temporary-—global hegemony. But, as Linda Colley shows in this masterfully written book, Britain’s overseas enterprises were always constrained by its own limitations in size, population, and armed forces, and by divisions among its subjects-—constraints and deficiencies that could make the dream of empire an ordeal even for its makers. Drawing on a wealth of captivity narratives by men and women of different social and ethnic backgrounds from the early seventeenth century to the Victorian era, Colley chronicles the complicated dynamic between invader and invaded.
Here are the stories of Sarah Shade, who was married to a succession of British military officers, attacked by tigers, and imprisoned by Indian ruler Tipu Sultan; Joseph Pitts, a white slave in Algiers from 1678 to 1693 and author of the first authentic—and very complimentary—English account of the pilgrimage to Mecca; and Florentia Sale, a captive in the Kabul insurrection of 1841 who used her time in confinement as an opportunity to interview military men for her memoir. There were also those who crossed the cultural divide and switched identities, like the Irishman George Thomas, a mercenary fighter for Indian rulers and failed dictator, and those who crossed but made it back, like John Rutherfurd, the onetime Chippewa warrior and Scot.
Colley uses these extraordinary tales to trace the changing boundaries of Britan’s pursuit of empire and its shifting attitudes toward Islam, slavery, race, and American revolutionaries.
Hailed by The Financial Times as a “White Teeth version of imperial history,”
Captives is at once an
original chronicle and a prescient meditation on the meaning of empire.
Customer Reviews:
"Airbrushed from history . . . ".......2004-08-25
Once, i hoped for a truly comprehensive survey of the British Empire and its global impact. This excellent book is almost the response i wished for. Colley examines "a quarter of a millennium" in an overview of three stages of Britain's expansionist adventure. From the start, she reminds us, Britain's miniscule population and limited resources made it an unlikely candidate for global expansion. Contending with nations better prepared or more experienced in empire-building, the founding of the British Empire was typified by false starts and unlikely events. In using the accounts of prisoners - kidnappees, prisoners of war or other captives, Colley is able to point out how both public views and policies changed during the growth of the Empire. Most important, she argues, is the need to dispel notions that the empire was monolithic in concept or development.
Clearly organised and written with clarity and intensity, Colley opens her study with an example of glaring failure. How many remember Britain's occupation of Tangier on the west coast of Africa? The city was part of a queen's dowry in 1661, giving Britain a control point over the Mediterranean trade routes [Gibraltar came under British power in 1701]. With Spain, France and Italy, not to mention the Dutch, all expanding their sea-going commerce, Tangier was a key location. The British poured immense sums into Tangier to create a fortified city, but it was lost less than a generation later. Colley explains how relations with the "Barbary" states of North Africa drove British foreign policy for many years. Those relations included ongoing efforts to redeem captives taken by corsairs, swift vessels that even raided coastal areas of the British Isles.
Britain's next expansionist efforts were even less calculated - the settlement of North America. While religious and other dissident groups founded communities along the eastern shores of North America, Britain's policy toward them remained ambivalent. Unlike the mostly military Mediterranean and Indian ventures, Colley says, North America focussed on settlements. When captives were taken, they might thus be whole families, with a wide age range and including more women that would be the case elsewhere. Accounts of captivity, therefore, were different from Tangier. Men taken by the Barbary corsairs might adopt local dress, customs, language, even Islam. This blurred the image of Muslims as the Other - an identifiable enemy figure. In North America, as colonies expanded, the Native Americans became more demonised in tales of warfare and capture. Even so, she notes, the North American enterprise was "poly-ethnic", with many nationalities arriving and the use of favoured Native American tribes as allies.
Britain's Indian incursions, Colley points out, added new dimensions to imperial imagery. Severe defeats and sepoy [Indians acting for British rulers] uprisings forced reflection on colonial costs and eroded prestige. Captivity accounts expanded knowledge of the culture of the subcontinent, demonstrating how many aspects of Indian life might be adopted - even brought home to Britain. Yet, captive accounts are generally sparse or non-existent. The Mysore wars created a population of captive soldiers held in recessed dungeons, but not one account of their ordeal reached print in their lifetimes. By the era of Victorian Britain, tales of captive life were nearly "airbrushed from history".
Given the location of some of her areas of study force comparisons to modern situations. Afghanistan has been the subject of outsider invasion more than once. Each time, while declaring they intended "no war on the Afghan people", people died as the intruders sought to install unpopular leaders on them. Inevitably, the result was embarrassment for the invaders and incarceration of their troops and civilians. Thus, even at the end of the period of Colley's study, she notes that the British Empire was still being consolidated haltingly. Uniformity, never a well-defined condition of the enterprise, remained lacking. Defeats and losses through captivity brought criticism and demands for redemption of captives. It failed to halt the expansionist nature of British policy, however.
Colley's book opens a new phase in historiography. Her eloquent style keeps this book alive for the reader at all times. Those thinking history can only be "dry" when written by an academic are in for a pleasant shock in picking up this book. Well illustrated and containing a rich bibliography, students of empire will welcome this book on their shelves. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Publishing Agendas?.......2004-03-14
Colley takes what at first seems an interesting subject that fashionably appears to be "previously uncovered" or left "at the margins" of contemporary revisionist imperial historiography. She is a genuine historian with a legitimate interest and professional weight in the discipline. But if she claims to be at odds with or neutral when it comes to the contemporary political context and agendas in which her argument to look at what will always be interpreted as "white slavery", she is vastly naive. She most certainly is in danger of being complicit with empire revisionists only too happy to make the claim that "ours wasn't all that bad". Edward Said mentioned this in his review of Catherine Hall's "Civilising Subjects" in the London Review of Books just months before he past away.
Furthermore, the decision of the publishers to publish the paperback edition of "Captives" with a cover that is almost the spitting image of Routledge's new edition of Paul Gilroy's "There Ain't no Black in the Union Jack" is just baffling. Somebody knows what they're doing and I don't like it.
The Cost of Empire.......2003-11-06
Colley makes it easy to understand why English is the world standard language today: a small population could only control as much as it did by co-opting vast numbers of people and this meant expending captives at a fairly high rate.
Their story is the story of the Empire at its bleeding edge.
Using captives to illuminate imperial expansion is a novel idea and well done.
If you know nothing about the British Empire..........2003-01-10
...this would be a good book. But if you know more this book will be slightly disappointing. Welcome to Linda Colley's new book about the British Empire which looks at it through the unusual prism of captive narratives. Colley's new book is oddly similar to her last book, "Britons", having approximately the same number of pages (c.380), the same number of illustrations (c.75-80), and the same number of notes. Colley's book is part of a particular British history genre. Following in the path of Simon Schama's "Citizens," these books are often lavishly illustrated and rely less on systematic research than amusing and telling anecdotes. Although the authors often have strong opinions, their interest lies less in their originality than at their ability to bring to the public an element of scholarly research that hitherto been overlooked. Similar authors include Orlando Figes, Niall Ferguson, and, in a pinch, Andrew Roberts.
Colley's book can be divided into three parts. First, she discusses the narratives of Britons captured by the Barbary and Algiers Corsairs in the 17th and 18th centuries. Second, she uses the narratives of those captured by Native Americans to highlight the relationship between the Britons and their American colonies. Thirdly, she looks at those Britons captive in India, either at the hand of rival kingdoms, or as soldiers captive in their own army. Throughout this book, Colley has a sharp turn of phrase ("The thin red [Imperial army] line was more accurately anorexic.) And she has an eye for fascinating detail. We learn that in the 1820s, two out of every five soldiers in Bermuda were whipped, and we are told about a particularly horrifying one in which the victim was whipped to death such that his back was "as black as a new hat." We learn that Irish soldiers in the 1680s in Algiers spoke in Gaelic to each other so that the English Protestants helping the besieging Moroccans wouldn't understand. We learn that not only did the British have campaigns for the benefit of the French prisoners they caught during the Seven years War, but the French held similar campaigns for the British prisoners they caught. We also get a sense of the continual expansion of the Empire. In the relatively quiet decade of the 1840s alone, Great Britain gobbled up New Zealand, Natal, the Punjab, and Hong Kong among other places.
Colley has two messages from her captivity narratives. First, there is the constant ambiguity of response. The British often could not help admitting the civilization of the Ottomans, the courage of the native Americans, and the resourcefulness of their Indian rivals. Many Britons admitted even more, and many crossed over to the other side, although the attempt to do so had their own difficulties and ambiguities. Colley constantly, indeed somewhat repetitively, argues that there was no monolithic racism. Secondly, she points out the constant vulnerabilities of the empire. Imperial overstretch was always a problem. Consider the example of the Barbary captives. Why would the British spend decades paying ransom for thousands of captives? The answer is that the Mediterranean was vital for British ambitions, and since the Spanish were not likely to subsidize their hold on Gibraltir, Muslim trade was vital for British provisions, and for the British hold on it. Similarly, British control of India required a tactful attitude towards its Native sepoys.
Much of this is interesting, and the chapter on British soldiers in India is very informative. But I have a number of reservations. (1) The constant use of illustrations shows a weakness in comparison with "Britons." There, Colley's discussion of national iconography was acute and informative. Here the illustrations are much less so. (2) Colley's arguments about racism, like those of her husband David Cannadine in "Ornamentalism," are based on a straw man. "There are those who argue, with the utmost sincerity, that were the British to remind themselves of their empire it would only further incite the racism inextinguishably associated with it." (376) Who are those people precisely? Post-colonial scholars, such as Barbara Fields, or Theodore Allen or David Roediger and others are well aware that racism has a history, and is not an invariable constant. David Brion Davis pointed out in the sixties that 18th century writers agreed that Africans did not live in a state of simple savagery. Yet Colley quotes none of these writers. (3) Colley's chapter on the American revolution is based on limited research. Allen Kulikoff is much more interesting on the viciousness of the war, and Colley does not even mention Bernard Bailyn, Edward Countryman, J.C.D. Clark, Gordon Wood and other scholars. (4) Finally, the constant emphasis on ambiguity and nuance tends to blur the fact that many indigenous populations were defeated, devastated, and in the case of Newfoundland and Tasmania, exterminated. Many of the subjects of the Ottoman and Mughal empires would fall under British rule. Some discussion of whether this was a good thing or a bad thing would be in order. And Empire and imperialist ideology did not only affect the Empire's subjects and citizens. Conquering the world would inspire other countries: Hitler was an admirer of the British empire.
Colley Borders On Captivating.......2003-01-08
I love books that get you to reexamine your attitudes or to at least look at something familiar in a new way- and not just for the sake of "novelty", but because the author has something important to say. "Captives" is such a book. What more can be said about the British Empire? The answer turns out to be quite a bit. Ms. Colley takes a look at four areas: North Africa, North America, India and Afghanistan- and examines the "captivity experiences" of white Britishers...soldiers, East India Company representatives and their families, merchant seamen, etc. This alone would be fascinating, because it is a subject rarely dealt with. But in addition to the "human interest/storytelling" aspects of the book, Ms. Colley has some serious, scholarly points to make. One is that, for the period covered in this book, it was certainly never clear, not even to the British, that there was going to be a British Empire. Britain was geographically small, had a small population and therefore a small army, and technology wasn't yet so far advanced that the British could feel confident that their weapons were automatically going to win battles or intimidate people. Another point the author makes is that due to consistent manpower shortages, the British could never just rely on their own forces. They had to depend on local, native troops. This was most obviously true in India, but it was also true in North America. The British had no choice other than to use Native American warriors against the French during the Seven Year's War and Native Americans and Blacks against the "rebels" during the Revolutionary War. Since the British needed these "outside" forces it influenced the way these "outsiders" were perceived and treated. For example, while Americans of European ancestry would caricaturize Native Americans as "savages", the British, in paintings of the period, would tend to show Native Americans in a way which, they felt, made them look "civilized" i.e.-in European dress or they would give them somewhat European features or mannerisms. Politically speaking, the British had to be careful not to antagonize or alienate these "mercenary" forces. They needed them too much. So, for example,if Native American forces killed prisoners who had surrendered or scalped civilians, the British sometimes just had to look the other way. In India, the absolute necessity to rely on native Indian troops influenced the way the British saw these troops. Ms. Colley cites quotations showing the sepoys were seen to be abstemious, intelligent and reliable, while the common soldier from Britain was seen to be a drunken, thieving brute who had to be kept in line with the lash. This punishment was much more likely to be used on the soldier from Britain, by the way. If the sepoys mutineed or deserted, that would result in the loss of about 85% of the British forces. As far as North Africa went, since they needed to hold onto Gibraltar and Minorca, the British had to "cut a deal" with the Barbary states and pay protection money. Once again, they weren't powerful enough to do otherwise. In Afghanistan, in the 1840's, the British would have to make alliances with certain warlords in order to try to defeat other warlords. The Royal Navy couldn't help out in a landlocked country! And, in a parallel with the present, Ms. Colley shows that it's a lot easier to invade Afghanistan than it is to accomplish what you want to accomplish and to get out. As you can see by what I've been writing, Ms. Colley doesn't just deal with the actual, physical nature of captivity. (She does deal with that, in detail, also. There are numerous "captivity stories" based on published and unpublished diaries and manuscripts.) Much of the "restraint" is political (what policies are necessary and what actions are acceptable) or intellectual/emotional (needing "outsiders" affects the way you think or feel about them). Ms. Colley is far too intelligent and too good a scholar to ever present any simplistic conclusions about any of this material. For even though many people could look on Native Americans, Blacks and sepoys, etc. in a favorable light, there were many people in Britain (both civilians and in the military) who could look down on those they considered to be their "inferiors". Hence, while during treaty negotiations at the end of the American Revolution British representatives would make sure to bend over backwards to protect the rights of loyalists, Blacks and Native Americans would be ignored. And condescending, racist attitudes would certainly contribute to the Indian Mutiny of 1857. While some physical captives would "go native"- adopt native dress and learn native language, convert to Islam, take a native spouse, etc., others would never look on their captors, even after long periods of time and even if treated well, as anything other than "barbarians". As Ms. Colley points out, history is rarely just about the past. The lessons and nuances of the "captivity experiences" of 200-300 years ago are still being learnt and felt today. There are still plenty of examples of racism (a worldwide phenomenon...obviously not confined to Britain) but Ms. Colley also notes that Britain has the highest instance of interracial marriage in the world. So, perhaps we can all hope that familiarity sometimes breeds something much more positive than contempt.
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General
| Ancient
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World
Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire
Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World
God's War: A New History of the Crusades
Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830
