The Ottoman Age of Exploration

"This is a new book that argues that the Ottoman Empire had a maritime interest in the Indian Ocean which we have underrated. We have found it overly easy to think about the Ottomans in terms of a land empire, which they obviously were, but they were also an important maritime power and we ought to be using that to re-examine our standard assumptions about the West, after the 15th century, being the only source of maritime power until you get the Japanese borrowing Western technology and ideas at the end 19th century. It is a very interesting book, although I don’t think he always demonstrates his points as well as one might like, but on the other hand it’s not easy to do research in Ottoman archives and, by the nature of things, if one is writing on a broad range like him there is only so much data that one can actually produce. What is great about this book, and the fact that it was published by a mainstream publisher, is that it shows that there is this willingness to engage in the wider world. I think this book and my first choice show that the standard military narratives are set by Western assumptions and these books aim to show a different side. The traditional view is that the rest of the world is struggling to catch up with the West in military terms and this is actually historically inaccurate. Historians need to think about the present impact of their work and rethink the history of war. That in turn will help them rethink what is going on in the present day and hopefully into the future. If you look at what happened in Iraq after the invasion in 2003, and what is going on now in Afghanistan , there is this issue of two very different narratives of military history coming into confrontation. The standard narrative, which is that of regular forces, high technology and Western assumptions, confronts another narrative in which non-Western forces display values and practices which do not conform and do not try to conform to those established in the West. If Western powers wish to use force sensibly, they have to be aware that other people aren’t necessarily going to fight the kind of wars they want."