Between Two Worlds: The Construction of Ottoman State.

Since the publication of Herbert A. Gibbons, The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire (Oxford, 1916), the evolution of a petty principality of uncertain origins in northwest Anatolia into a major empire has been an ongoing topic of debate among historians of the Islamic world. Kafadar's penetrating analysis, which may well become the definitive treatment of the subject, follows upon, and to some degree assumes familiarity with, Gibbons and his successors: Koprulu, Wittek, and Lindner, to cite the best known.(1) Rather than engage these predecessors in detailed debate, Kafadar briefly summarizes their arguments in his first chapter, "The Moderns," before presenting his own approach …