When empires fall, they tend to stay dead ... distinctively Islamic government began to falter. The Ottoman Empire, whose ruler claimed to lead the Islamic world as caliph, adopted a series ...

What was the secret of their success, and what ultimately caused the empire's fall? How do the Ottomans ... three pillars of Ottoman inheritance: Byzantium, Islam, Mongols; the origins and rise of the ...

Coffee must have been the secret weapon of Greek, Slav, and Albanian mercenary units, the stratioti, that fought together throughout Europe in the 15th to 18th centuries. The stratioti must have ...

John Julius Norwich tells the dramatic story of the fall of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire, followed by the rise of the Ottoman Turks in the 15th Century. Using monuments in Istanbul to ...