Ilber Ortayli, professor of Political Science, at the University of Ankara is one of the world’s most respected historians of the Ottoman Empire. This collection of Ortayli’s varied work offers the author’s insight into a wide range of topics concerning the Ottoman lands, including governance in the eighteenth-century, provincial history, minorities, the political restructuring that was the Tanzimat, Russo-Ottoman relations and society and culture. As a means of explaining the wide variety of topics he seeks to cover in this book, Ortayli begins by arguing to the reader that Ottoman history is the history of the third Roman Empire but that its breadth and depth have not been studied to the degree of its predecessors. With this collection, Ortayli focuses on the theme of transformation – something which is obvious from his selection of subjects such as the Tanzimat and the role of minorities in the Ottoman state. With his background in political history, Ortayli attempts to revive interest in this aspect of Ottoman historiography.