Rating: 
Summary: A MASTERPIECE
Review: A must for anyone who wants to understand the history and culture of the Turkish state... The Ottoman Centuries clearly describes the rise, decline, reform and ultimate fall of one of history's strongest empires; from it's nomadic origins to the early twentieth century. Beginning as an insignificant principality at the edge of Asia Minor, the Turks expanded in all directions, forming an empire on three continents. This book brings it all to life. All of the important events and leading figures are discussed, without bland explanations and without exaggeration.
Rating: 
Summary: Not for academics.
Review: A nice gloss, however. It should inspire more thoughtful readers to seek to expand their knowledge in more scholarly sources. Also, for clarity's sake, it should be pointed out that Kinross is English. The peerage thing never caught on in the States.
Rating: 
Summary: Who were the Ottomans really?
Review: As long as Kinross was not exposed to Ottoman files and documents, he cannot conclude how the Ottomans rose and fell. The title too: the rise is discussed, but the fall? What happened?Also, big round applause for the author for leaving the word Armenia out (very talented!). Is it that hard to face the facts so as to become friends again (we used to be brothers!)? No further comment.
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Summary: Why did Constantinople get the works ?
Review: Covering 622 years of history in exactly that many pages is no joke, especially when your subject is as vast as the Ottoman Empire, that began with Osman in the year 1300 and shuffled off the record in 1923, when the man who became known as Ataturk shipped the last sultan into exile. To write about so much history is necessarily to choose certain topics to the detriment of others. Lord Kinross made his choices, and though I will argue with him over this and that, the result is certainly a splendid book, which must be called the classic history of the Ottoman Empire---for lay readers. Here are no compilations of dry statistics, no detailed analyses of agricultural production or shipbuilding techniques to confound the layman. Not a single footnote "mars" the pages, nor are references to other writers more than a handful. Kinross inserts few dates to confuse the reader, though I could have used some more enlightening in this direction. His prose is wonderfully smooth, his passage from one topic to the next, fluid. He brings up the big picture again and again, even providing an excellent summary of his ideas in the epilogue. Maps and interesting engravings pepper the pages. I looked forward to reading this book for years: I was not disappointed. However, certain caveats must be mentioned. First and foremost, this is a history that seems to have been written on English and French sources only. Thus, while I can definitely attest to its readability, I can't be sure of its accuracy. Second, Kinross' choice of subject is strictly limited. He portrays the succession of sultans, from the dynamic first ten, to the usually poor-performing, last twenty-five. He covers the various wars, rebellions, and coups in clear, graphic prose and he concentrates on the administrative patterns of the different periods of the Empire, rightly praising the early network of Christian-born officials that brought the standard of government to a level far beyond anything pertaining in Europe at the time---creating such an atmosphere that for centuries, European peasants preferred to be ruled by the Ottomans than by their own, more grasping, unpredictable rulers. Diplomacy and the many treaties entered into over the years also get intelligent treatment, and an occasional foray is made into economic development. There is still a great deal missing. If you are interested in general Ottoman culture, literature and the arts, religion, or daily life, this is not the book for you, these subjects are hardly touched. Other areas too are strangely neglected---discussion of the Turkish rule in North Africa and Asia is left out in favor of Europe. The building of the Suez Canal is mentioned only in passing. Pan-Turkism rates only a couple small paragraphs and names such as Ziya Gokalp do not appear. World War I, Gallipoli, the fighting in Mesopotamia, etc. are all glossed over with incredible speed. However, as I said before, with such a vast topic to cover, the author had to make some choices and I am just quibbling about them. I strongly recommend this excellent book to any reader wishing a solid, well-organized, readable history of the Ottoman Empire, one of the most fascinating (and long lasting) formations of human history. And by the way, you WILL learn why Constantinople got the works.
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Summary: Summary of mediocre research from the 1800s-1950s
Review: Footnotes to give your claims a little credibility? Who needs 'em! Primary sources? Ha! Scholarly research? Nope. Total number of pages devoted to a bibliography in a book that covers more than 700 years? TWO.
This has to be a joke. I am unspeakably frustrated at the bad history, bad research, and wild speculations that Lord Kinross is passing off as a real nonfiction book. An undergraduate should be ashamed of his bibliography for a 10-page research paper, much less a hulking volume like this with pretensions to accuracy.
Within a handful of pages, I found so many errors, misreprentations, and glosses that I couldn't go on. Kinross's primary (and ONLY) source for the last years of the Byzantine Empire appears to be Gibbon, of all people, which is one huge red flag right up front. He clearly has no comprehension of the true struggles, national or international, of the dying Empire, and instead, he parrots things from God-knows-where that simply make no sense and have absolutely no basis on fact. The emperor was strong-armed to recant orthodoxy by Amadeo of Savoy, who rescued him from captivity????? Please! Given the generations of emperors desperate to heal the schism in hopes of getting Latin support and that emperor's continuing efforts in that direction, this claim is beyond ludicrous. John VI introduced the FIRST Turkish troops into Europe???? *rolls eyes* Turkish mercernaries had been hired by the Byzantines almost since the Turks appeared on the scene in the Near East, and, in fact, one Emir had even been required to supply a group of his own troops to the Byzantines after a military defeat.
Kinross also is so completely out of touch with the culture that he's researching that his theories about the methods and motives of the Sultans is simply painful. Why didn't the early Sultans force all the Christians in te Balkans to convert or die? According to Lord Kinross, it's because his army wasn't big enough to inforce such a decree and the population of his Anatolian provinces wasn't enough to replace the Christian population. No hint of Islamic law concerning people of the Book. I doubt he even knows what that is. Another example of blatantly false information: All of the Christians were enslaved instead, though some could ransom themselves and others were essentially made into serfs (minus all the attractive women who, according to Kinross, were always made into the concubines of the conquerors.) I can't even begin to say how wrong this is.
He also presents as absolute fact things that are only speculated by reseachers (often far more convincingly than inhis version of the facts), such as the first origins of the Turks and the social structure of the early Turcoman tribes. In addition, he turns the migrations of the Turcomans into a muddled mess, skipping and jumping around so that a reader with no prior experience gains no clear picture of anything.
The worst of it is that I am NOT a researcher or an expert in this field, yet Lord Kinross's account is so wrong in so very many ways that almost every page caused me to blink in disbelief. I'm sure an expert would be even more appalled. The only reason I did not give this a single star is that it isn't an out-and-out fabrication, merely a perpetuation of other old, bad "research."
Rating:
Summary: Excellent introduction to Ottoman history
Review: For what it tries to achieve--a sweeping, compelling and entertaining recount of the entire history of the Ottoman empire--this book is flawless in its execution. Lord Kinross is a masterful writer well acquainted with his subject. He effortlessly weaves accounts of important and long-range social, economic and institutional changes into a story disguised as a pageant of colorful personalities. For me, the most eye-opening part of the story was the nineteenth-century: the decrepit Ottoman empire as a fierce source of entropy for the delicately balanced European great power systems. It was most enlightening to view European diplomatic struggles from the vantage point of Istanbul.
Rating:
Summary: A Sweeping and Expansive Achievement
Review: Here Lord Kinross has created quite an achievement in historical writing, summing up the 600 years of the Ottoman empire in one concise, easy to read, yet expansive narrative. Kinross shows a clear understanding of large historical, cultural, and political trends that results in a narrative that is sweeping in its scope. Kinross is clearly influenced by Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" and even uses that phrase a few times in this book, merely replacing the word "Roman" with "Ottoman." Hence while Kinross is commenting on the minute details of various time periods throughout Ottoman history, he also keeps you appraised of the long-term trends that would result first in the empire's rise to greatness and then its slow downfall. One weakness of this method though, is the frequent use of the "beginning of the end" or "it was all downhill from here" refrains, which was also noticed by another reviewer here on Amazon. In fact, Kinross first brings this up way back at the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, nearly four centuries before the empire finally dissolved, although it's true that the empire had reached its peak at that point. Another possible point of contention with this book is Kinross' coverage of the empire's foreign relations, with most space going to the Europeans to the west and later the Russians to the north. There is very little about the empire's relations with the Persians to the east, and almost nothing about the Arabs and Africans to the south. However this is probably more the result of the differing amounts of documentation and evidence available in each area, rather than any bias on the author's part. Meanwhile Parts VI and VII really drag with minute details on the political wranglings of the European powers in relation to the empire. But those are just some minor weaknesses, which are more than made up for by the strengths described above, as well as Kinross' occasional forays into colorful descriptions of the lifestyles of the royals and their subjects, and coverage of the empire's culture and architecture. Finally, one reviewer here for some self-serving reason slammed this book for failing to cover the massacres of the Armenians. This is 100% false, as Kinross not only covers three different periods in which the Turks tried to smash the Armenians, but effectively places the blame where it's due. That reactionary critic both failed to read the book and failed to realize that it supports his position. He/she also claims that the fall of the empire is left out, supposedly missing an entire half of the book. Figure that one out.
Rating:
Summary: Turkish History 101
Review: I am no authority in Ottoman and Turkish history, but I can sniff some degrees of mediocrity in history books. "The Ottoman Centuries" is like one of those vaguely researched and poignantly narrated Eastern European or Middle Eastern chronicles stemming from verbal, unsubstantiated material passed on from generation to generation and increasingly exaggerated along the way. For one thing, Lord Kinross writes 622 pages compiled from a meager bibliography made up of some 20 or 30 texts, some of which are such milestone survey histories as Edward Gibbons' "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire." Who is he kidding? Notwithstanding this criticism, the author's balance and objectivity are sprinkled in each and every chapter in generous bunches. His western voice transports deeds of a radicalized people to the ears of those much too unfamiliar with a nation caught between the Bosporus and Anatolia, misunderstood, unwanted, feared and mistrusted by Europeans and Asians alike. Perhaps, it is in the pages describing the political, military and religious institutions spawned from the Porte that Lord Kinross reaches the zenith of his book. In it, the reader can grasp some of the factors motivating the Ottomans' crave for assassinating brothers to protect uninterrupted lineage, impaling infidels or decapitating prisoners for sport. "The Ottoman Centuries" is a good companion for those fond of sophomoric Turkish History 101 survey courses, but lacks the punch line to convince history scholars.
Rating:
Summary: Legendary Book By A Legendary Writer
Review: I bought this book over 15 years ago and I always go back to it as a reference. Lord Kinross writes very clearly and if you want a solid reference on the Ottoman Empire this should be on your bookshelf. Gives a description of major Sultans and events in Ottoman Turkish history. I also recommed Kinross's other excellent book on Ataturk the founder of modern Turkey. Once again Kinross does not dissapoint.
Rating:
Summary: Fine Comprehensive Work
Review: I think this is a fine work in general. Its an absolutely comprehensive narrative history. It takes a nice long sequential look at the Empire's rise and fall. However, this book suffers from a pair of major flaws. First, the book lacks a sense of the wider forces at work in the empire. Its a very classical top-down or leadership focus for the entire book. You are left with little understanding of social pressures other than the other monotheist minority. Even then, it would seem that the Caliph-Sultan was almost a secular state because Kinross does little to discuss the nature of Islam. It is always present but it reads like a western secularist who doesn't really care much for much on these sort of things. Second, the back of the book has a blurb stating how well written this book is. I have to say that I felt that Kinross' writing was not always clear and easy. I feel like he uses terms of art without providing a contextual interpretation for some of them. In addition, he will repeat exact same phrases within 100 pages of each other-- e.g. this was the worst naval loss since X... and then say that again later. It seemed to me that he was in a hurry to get it all out before he forgot it all himself. However, this book is truly a nice primer. To cover 5 centuries of dynastic and political rise and fall within 700 pages is amazingly impressive.
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