The title of this book is The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire. This book was first published in 1992 and reprinted in 1995 by John Murray Publishers Ltd. in London. The author of this book is Alan Palmer. He was a famous writer and he had written many history books. Other books written by him are The Gardeners of Salonika, The Penguin Dictionary of Modern History (1789-1945), The Lands Between: A History of East-Central, Europe since the Congress of Vienna Metternich, Alexander I: Tsar of War and Peace Bismarck, The Kaiser: Warlord of the Second Reich, The Chancelleries of Europe, An Encyclopedia of Napoleon’s Europe, The Banner of Battle: The Story of the Crimean War, Kemal Ataturk, Independent Eastern Europe (with C.A. Macartney), and The Royal House of Greece (with Prince Michael of Greece).
This book contains 299 pages and was divided into 16 chapters. The chapters were divided into Floodtide of Islam, Challenge from the West, Tulip Time and After, Western Approaches, The Strange Fate of Sultan Selim, Mahmud II: The Enigma, Egyptian Style, Sick Man?, Dolmabahche, Yildiz, The Hamidiaan Empire, Armenia, Crete and the Thirty-Day War, Ancient Peoples and Young Turks, Seeking Union and Progress, Germany’s Ally, and Sovereignty and Sultanate.
While writing this book, Alan Palmer had referred to the earlier historian work. In this book, it discusses about the chronology, causes and effect of the decline and fall during Ottoman Empire.
Actually, this book offers a fascinating overview of the Ottoman Empire’s decline from the failure to take Vienna in 1683 to the abolition of the Sultanate in 1922 by Mustafa Kemal, after a revolutionary upsurge of Turkish national pride. The narrative deals with constantly recurring problems: competing secular and religious authority; acceptance or rejection of Western ideas; greedy neighbours; population movements; and the strength or weakness of successive Sultans. The book also emphasizes the challenges of the early twentieth century, when railways and oilfields gave new importance to Ottoman lands in the Middle East.
Recent events have put the problems that faced the later Sultans back upon the world agenda. Names like Basra and Mosul again make the headlines. So, too, do the old empire’s outposts in Albania and Macedonia in the west and the mountainous Caucasus in the east. Alan Palmer’s narrative reminds us of the long, sad continuity of conflict in the Lebanon.
According to Alan Palmer (1992), the greatest of an empire’s decline and fall decided on the immense theme of his life’s work when he ‘sat musing on the Capitol, while the bare-footed fryars were chanting their litanies in the temple of Jupiter’. A far humbler enterprise had its origins in musings at a site no less evocative than Gibbon had chosen, but to a background of less contemplative supplications: Alan Palmer was seated well above the Bosphorus, while sandal-footed tourists were ordering their luncheons on the terrace of the old Seraglio.
Alan Palmer thought he would write almost entirely about the Sultans themselves as he looked out from the historic palace to the long white classical façade of the Dolmabahche and the green parkland of Yildiz beyond. But when he left Istanbul he realized that this would be a mistake. In retrospect the most fascinating aspect of the Ottoman past is not a succession of rarely remarkable sovereigns, but the empire’s geographical extent, and the way in which an astonishingly narrow ruling class imposed government on lands extending from the Danubian plains to the mountains of the Caucasus, the headwaters of the Gulf and the deserts of southern Arabia and North Africa. It has to be admitted that, although the Ottoman Empire was pre-eminent in the Balkans and the Near East for more than six centuries, when it collapsed in the wake of the First World War no one was surprised to see it disappear: long before Tsar Nicholas I’s casual complaint of having ‘a sick man’ on our hands, foreign observers were predicting the imminent downfall of so cumbersome an institution. But how did it survive so long? The decline was certainly not rapid, nor was it in any sense constantly progressive, a steady downward graph from the autumn of 1683 when, for the second time, an Ottoman army failed to take Vienna. The reforms which arrested the decline have a particular historical interest of their own; and so, too, do the reformers who attempted to put them into practice.
Modern historical fashion favours analysis by topics at the expense of narrative. Over the two and half centuries covered by the main body of this book there are constantly recurring problems: secular and religious authority; the inadequacies of a unique form of military feudalism; movements of population; the greed of powerful neighbours; and above all, uncertainty whether to borrow from the West or to seek inspiration from Ottoman origins in north-western Anatolia. But it is easy to perceive at work in these centuries H.A.L Fisher’s famous non-pattern of ‘one emergency following upon another as wave followed upon wave’; and Alan Palmer have therefore planned the book primarily as a work of narrative history, reflecting the form of the highly personal autocracy established in the Ottoman Empire.
Alan Palmer admit that when he began research into the material for this book, the Ottoman Empire seemed as irrelevant to what was going on around us as are the Wars of the Roses. Only in Lebanon was there a long and sad continuity of conflict. Now, however, the Ottoman past is less remote. The dynasty may have gone, but many problems that plagued the later Sultans once more make the news. For two years the cycle of history has been spinning in top gear. Half forgotten place names are back in the headlines: towns like Basra, Mosul, Damascus or Diyarbakir; and distant outposts in Bosnia-Herzegovina or Albania in the west and along the sea coast of the Gulf or the mountain chain of the Caucasus in the east. Once again we learn of the Kurdish struggle for survival and of Armenian aspirations for independence. We are reminded of the underlying Muslim character of Sarajevo a place name which for three-quarters of a century has been more generally associated with the Habsburgs than with the Ottomans. We read of rival nationalities re-emerging in Macedonia and of the clash of linguistic minorities in Bulgaria. And, more gradually, we are becoming aware of the nineteen Turkic languages which, having outlived the Soviet Union, threaten to allow an Ottoman ghost or at least the shade of Enver Pasha to disturb the early years of the new central Asian republics. With a Soviet empire falling so speedily that it had no time to go into decline, the fate of Russia’s former Ottoman rival in the Black Sea becomes strangely topical.
Writing about a past empire spread over three continents inevitably presents problems of nomenclature. Where any place has a name in common English usage, e.g., Salonika, Damascus, and Jaffa, Alan Palmer have used that form. Otherwise he has generally used the place-name current in the period of which he was writing. For most of the book, Istanbul therefore appears as Constantinople, Izmir as Smyrna, and Trabzon as Trebizond. In doubtful cases he has employed what he assume to be the form most familiar to the reader, e.g., Edirne rather than Adrianople. To help identify places he includes a list of alternative place-names after the main narrative. The reader will also find there the dates of the Sultans who reigned in Constantinople, and a glossary explaining some of the Ottoman terms used in the text, although he hope that he has also indicated their meaning at the first point in the narrative where they appear. For proper names – some of which are of Slavonic, Greek, Arabic or Persian origin – He use the forms which seem to him to look best in English, rather than the standard Turkish spelling system (which of course updates Ottoman usage). Commonly Anglicized words are given the accepted form – e.g. Pasha, Vizier.
My comment regarding this book: I really enjoy while I read this book. After finish reading this book, I really get clear picture about the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire. Alan Palmer uses a simple language which makes me easy to understand what he trying to present. Compare with the book title Osmanli History 1289-1922 written by Mehmet Maksudoglu, I prefer to read Alan Palmer book. It is because Alan Palmer’s book using a layout and fond which make me attracted to read this book until the end. In my humble opinion, I feel that Alan Palmer had already succeeded in deliver his ideas regarding the history of the decline and fall of the Ottoman Empire. Due to this, I have made a photocopy of this book for my reading collection.
On the other hand, this book also has some weaknesses such as lack of beautiful pictures. As we know, pictures are one of the attention getter in order to attract people to buy and read the book. Other than that, this book did not include the writer biography. Writer biography is an important element that must be covered. For me myself, before I read a book, I want to get an overview about the writer background.
According to Robert Blake’s comment, he said that, this is a marvelously readable book based on massive research. While, John Keegan, Daily Telegraph claimed that, this book is readable and informative. Independent on Sunday reported that, this book is a scholarly, readable and balanced history. And many peoples said that, this book is very interesting and attractive.
In conclusion, I really suggested other peoples to read this book. Frankly speaking, I really admired Alan Palmer writing.
