Ottoman Architecture is the first modern history of Ottoman architecture written by Ottomans themselves, yet it is little known outside the field of late Ottoman studies. This magnificently-illustrated volume codifies the empire’s architectural history into a series of preliminary stages culminating in the efflorescence of the Ottoman classical tradition in the sixteenth-century. At the same time, the text positions this imperial architectural legacy in relation to modernising projects in the late Ottoman Empire; in particular, the “Ottoman architectural Renaissance” sponsored by Sultan Abdülaziz (r. 1861-1876). Moreover, as Ahmet Ersoy (2015) has argued in his monograph on this book, architecture is a prism through which the authors offer a larger analysis of modernity in the Ottoman Empire; an analysis where built heritage serves “as an index for various stages in the transformation of the Ottoman state and civilization.”