PositiveThe New York Times Book Review... full of fine details of this cross-cultural encounter, but its most arresting aspect is Mikhail’s second claim: that \'the Ottoman Empire made our modern world\' ... This is strong stuff although, in a way, the traditional historians might agree ... Mikhail steers clear of such guesswork, and instead makes his case by devoting the bulk of his book to a biographical account of Selim the Grim (reigned 1512-20)...Mikhail sometimes struggles to integrate this story smoothly with his tale of the Spaniards in America; there is maybe too much detail on Selim’s campaigns, and some of the linkages, like the parallels Mikhail draws between Selim’s death and Montezuma’s (both in 1520), feel strained. However, the story is always interesting. Who would not want to know about the history of Yemeni coffee or the olive-oil wrestlers of Edirne? ... The highest praise for a history book is that it makes you think about things in a new way.
William Dalrymple
RaveThe New York Times Book Review... a vivid and richly detailed story ... Dalrymple...is delightfully evenhanded ... the greatest virtue of this disturbingly enjoyable book is perhaps less the questions it answers than the new ones it provokes about where corporations fit into the world, both then and now ... Dalrymple is surely right that \'in the end, it all came down to money.\' That is perhaps the true lesson of the company’s history—and one that makes Dalrymple’s book worth reading by everyone, M.B.A. student or not.
Stephen R. Platt
RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewAs the West’s entanglement with China has deepened since the 1990s, so too has fascination with the Opium War, and every China-watcher will want to read Stephen R. Platt’s fascinating and beautifully constructed new book ... Unlike most accounts of the Opium War, Imperial Twilight focuses not on the conflict itself but on its background, going back to the Chinese decision in the 1750s to restrict Western trade to the single port of Canton. The usual highlights, like Lord Macartney’s trade embassy of 1793, are all here, but so too is a parade of less well-known but equally important episodes and a procession of gloriously eccentric characters ... Good men do bad things, roads to hell are paved with good intentions and golden opportunities are missed. In short, Imperial Twilight is a ripping yarn.
Roger Crowley
PositiveThe New York Times Book ReviewManuel and Albuquerque came close to pulling off the biggest strategic coup in history, converting Portugal from the most backward fringe of western Eurasia to the center of a global empire. It is only when we ask why they failed that Crowley’s story perhaps fails too. But maybe that will be the subject for Crowley’s next book; and if it is as good as this one, it will be worth waiting for.
