HIST 310 Sultans, Slaves, Soldiers: The Ottoman Empire

At the dawn of modernity, while Spanish and Portuguese explorers were crossing the Atlantic, nomadic horsemen from Central Asia built an Islamic empire that spanned Europe, Asia, and Africa: the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans conquered the ancient Christian city of Constantinople and made it their new capital, Istanbul. In the age of gunpowder, they built a rugged infantry of enslaved subjects, the Janissaries, feared from Cairo to the gates of Vienna. They lost it all to rising European imperialism and the crucible of World War I. This course tells their story.