Turks Young and Old

Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire, by Caroline Finkel (Basic, 660 pp., $35)

IN his Lectures on Modern History, posthumously published exactly a century ago and now available in a handsome edition from Liberty Fund, Lord Acton observed that “Modern History begins under stress of the Ottoman Conquest.” Does that judgment surprise you? We’ve been hearing-endlessly-how everything in the Islamic sphere today is to be understood as a response to “modernity,” variously construed. Yet Acton says that modern history itself-the world system that is still with us, however modified, with its origins in Europe-began as a response to the Ottoman conquest.

About the Author

John Wilson

John Wilson is a senior editor of the Marginalia Review of Books.

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Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire, by Caroline Finkel (Basic, 660 pp., $35)

IN his Lectures on Modern History, posthumously published exactly a century ago and now available in a handsome edition from Liberty Fund, Lord Acton observed that “Modern History begins under stress of the Ottoman Conquest.” Does that judgment surprise you? We’ve been hearing-endlessly-how everything in the Islamic sphere today is to be understood as a response to “modernity,” variously construed. Yet Acton says that modern history itself-the world system that is still with us, however modified, with its origins in Europe-began as a response to the Ottoman conquest.