Ottoman Odyssey
Travels Through a Lost Empire
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
An exploration of the contemporary influence of the Ottoman Empire on the wider world, as the author uncovers the new Ottoman legacy across Europe and the Middle East.
Alev Scott’s odyssey began when she looked beyond Turkey’s borders for contemporary traces of the Ottoman Empire. Their 800 years of rule ended a century ago—and yet, travelling through twelve countries from Kosovo to Greece to Palestine, she uncovers a legacy that’s vital and relevant; where medieval ethnic diversity meets twenty-first century nationalism—and displaced people seek new identities.
It's a story of surprises. An acolyte of Erdogan in Christian-majority Serbia confirms the wide-reaching appeal of his authoritarian leadership. A Druze warlord explains the secretive religious faction in the heart of the Middle East. The palimpsest-like streets of Jerusalem's Old Town hint at the Ottoman co-existence of Muslims and Jews. And in Turkish Cyprus, Alev Scott rediscovers a childhood home. In every community, history is present as a dynamic force.
Faced by questions of exile, diaspora and collective memory, Alev Scott searches for answers from the cafes of Beirut to the refugee camps of Lesbos. She uncovers in Erdogan's nouveau-Ottoman Turkey a version of the nostalgic utopias sold to disillusioned voters in Europe and America. And yet—as she relates with compassion, insight, and humor—diversity is the enduring, endangered heart of this fascinating region.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this insightful and easily approachable combination of travelogue and history, journalist Scott (Turkish Awakening) surveys the mosaic of competing ethnic and religious allegiances that characterizes the former Ottoman Empire, from the Balkan states to the Middle East and the Caucasus, and the fate of the diverse former empire's minority groups in the present-day climate of nationalism. Scott writes that she had planned for her second book to focus on the minority religions of Turkey, but her intentions changed after she was expelled from the country by the Erdogan regime in 2016. This forced her to range farther afield in her research, seeking out the Turkish diaspora and the remnants of empire, "descendants of ancient minorities that were allowed to flourish in the empire, and then intimidated, ignored or expelled from modern Turkey" including "auto mechanics in rural Kosovo... the children of Armenian genocide survivors in Jerusalem... Lebanese warlords, and professors in... Sarajevo." With a skill for drawing out telling anecdotes from her subjects, a lyrical sense of humor, and an evident compassion for those whose lives have been constrained by forces larger than themselves, she probes the scars left by history even 100 years after the end of empire. This is essential reading for those interested in how historical mythologies warp and contort individual lives.
