God's Shadow: Sultan Selim His Ottoman Empire and the Making of the Modern World

About this book

Best Books of the Year Times Literary Supplement Publishers Weekly History Today Longlisted Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Editors Choice New York Times Book Review A stunning work of global history. . . . Alan Mikhail offers a bold and thoroughly convincing new way to think about the origins of the modern world. . . . A tour de force. Greg Grandin Long neglected in world history the Ottoman Empire was a hub of intellectual fervor geopolitical power and enlightened pluralistic rule. At the height of their authority in the sixteenth century the Ottomans with extraordinary military dominance and unparalleled monopolies over trade routes controlled more territory and ruled over more people than any world power forcing Europeans out of the Mediterranean and to the New World. Yet despite its towering influence and centrality to the rise of our modern world the Ottoman Empires history has for centuries been distorted misrepresented and even suppressed in the West. Now Alan Mikhail presents a vitally needed recasting of Ottoman history retelling the story of the Ottoman conquest of the world through the dramatic biography of Sultan Selim I (14701520). Born to a concubine and the fourth of his sultan fathers ten sons Selim was never meant to inherit the throne. With personal charisma and military prowessas well as the guidance of his remarkably gifted mother GlbaharSelim claimed power over the empire in 1512 and through ruthless ambition nearly tripled the territory under Ottoman control building a governing structure that lasted into the twentieth century. At the same time Selimknown by his subjects as Gods Shadow on Earthfostered religious diversity welcoming Jews among other minority populations into the empire; encouraged learning and philosophy; and penned his own verse. Drawing on previously unexamined sources from multiple languages and with original maps and stunning illustrations Mikhails game-changing account challenges readers to recalibrate their sense of history (Leslie Peirce) adroitly using Selims life to upend prevailing shibboleths about Islamic history and jingoistic rise of the West theories that have held sway for decades. Whether recasting Christopher Columbuss voyages to the Americas as a bumbling attempt to slay Muslims or showing how the Ottomans allowed slaves to become the elite of society while Christian states at the very same time waged the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade Gods Shadow radically reshapes our understanding of the importance of Selims Ottoman Empire in the history of the modern world. 16 pages of color illustrations; 40 black-and-white illustrations