A new approach to late Ottoman visual culture and its place in the world
With its idiosyncratic yet unmistakable adaptation of European Baroque models, the eighteenth-century architecture of Istanbul has frequently been dismissed by modern observers as inauthentic and derivative, a view reflecting broader unease with notions of Western influence on Islamic cultures. In Ottoman Baroque—the first English-language book on the topic—Ünver Rüstem provides a compelling reassessment of this building style and shows how between 1740 and 1800 the Ottomans consciously coopted European forms to craft a new, politically charged, and globally resonant image for their empire’s capital.
Rüstem reclaims the label “Ottoman Baroque” as a productive framework for exploring the connectedness of Istanbul’s eighteenth-century buildings to other traditions of the period. Using a wealth of primary sources, he demonstrates that this architecture was in its own day lauded by Ottomans and foreigners alike for its fresh, cosmopolitan effect. Purposefully and creatively assimilated, the style’s cross-cultural borrowings were combined with Byzantine references that asserted the Ottomans’ entitlement to the Classical artistic heritage of Europe. Such aesthetic rebranding was part of a larger endeavor to reaffirm the empire’s power at a time of intensified East-West contact, taking its boldest shape in a series of imperial mosques built across the city as landmarks of a state-sponsored idiom.
Copiously illustrated and drawing on previously unpublished documents, Ottoman Baroque breaks new ground in our understanding of Islamic visual culture in the modern era and offers a persuasive counterpoint to Eurocentric accounts of global art history.

Evliya Celebi was the 17th century's most diligent, adventurous, and honest recorder, whose puckish wit and humor are laced throughout his ten-volume masterpiece. This brand new translation brings Evliya sparklingly back to life. ""This superb selection from the 'Seyahatname' introduces Evliya Celebi, who witnessed history, recorded ethnological facts scrupulously, and allowed his mind to range freely into the realsm of the fabulous providing us with an insider's depcition of the O-Henry Glassie, Professor Emeritus of Turkish Studies at Indiana University

Beginning in Inner Asia two thousand years ago, the Turks have migrated and expanded to form today's Turkish Republic, five post-Soviet republics, other societies across Eurasia, and a global diaspora. For the first time in a single, accessible volume, this book traces the Turkic peoples' trajectory from steppe, to empire, to nation-state. Cultural, economic, social, and political history unite in these pages to illuminate the projection of Turkic identity across space and time and the profound transformations marked successively by the Turks' entry into Islam and into modernity.

《中东史610-2000(套装上下册)》内容简介：伴随着公元七世纪的曙光，伊斯兰教诞生在亚洲西南部的沙漠瀚海，阿拉伯人悄然崛起于仿佛被喧嚣的文明社会所遗忘的角落，进而走出贫瘠荒凉的家园，作为崭新的统治民族登上中东的历史舞台。阿拉伯人创立的庞大帝国，囊括了西起大西洋、东至帕米尔高原、北迄高加索、南达阿拉伯海的辽阔土地。伊斯兰教的传播惊醒了不信者的酣梦，波斯人、突厥人、柏柏尔人和库尔德人相继加入穆斯林的行列。哈里发统治下的国家在刀光剑影和血雨腥凤中经历了六百年跌宕起伏的岁月，王朝更迭，浩荡长歌，悲怆动人。终于有一天，从东方涌来的蒙古铁骑踏碎了巴格达哈里发励精图治的最后梦想，享尽风流的帝国湮灭干弹指之间，阿拔斯王朝曾经的蔚盛文风和滚滚翰墨从此成为远去的往事。
中东文明的传统并没有因为蒙古铁骑而销声匿迹，中东历史的长河依然在静静地流淌。在蒙古铁骑浩劫的残垣断壁之上，奥斯曼土耳其人异军突起，在小亚细亚半岛和巴尔干半岛攻城掠地，夺取拜占庭帝国的千年古都君士坦丁堡，降服西起马格里布、东至扎格罗斯山西麓的阿拉伯人。奥斯曼帝国继阿拉伯帝国之后再度雄踞亚欧非大陆的中央地带，传承着先知穆罕默德点燃的信仰火种和阿拉伯帝国的文明遗产。
自十五世纪开始，基督教世界迅速崛起，历史的天平随之经历由东向西的巨大倾斜。缘起于欧洲大西洋沿岸的现代化浪潮冲击着“三洲五海”的世界，伊斯坦布尔的苏丹曾经统治的辽阔疆域沦为西方列强蚕食和瓜分的“东方遗产”。进入二十世纪，诸多的主权国家兴起于奥斯曼帝国的废墟之上，古老的土地迎来了现代的文明，中东的历史掀开了崭新的篇章。人们或许仍然守候着千百年的梦想，却不得不面对动荡和变革的现实。在麦加，悠扬的驼铃声在起伏的汽笛中湮灭。在开罗，鳞次栉比的高楼陪伴着日升月落。在安卡拉，竞选的传单漫天飞舞。在德黑兰，攒动的人群倾听着世界的声音。在迪拜，行色匆匆的过客或许牵动着华尔街敏感的神经。生活在中东这个神奇的土地上的人们，畅想着美好的未来，从不曾放弃希望。