Lords of the Horizons (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Jason Goodwin
- First Published: 1999
- Type of Work: History
- Time of Work: c. 1300-1922
- Setting: The Balkans, Thrace, Asia Minor and the Middle East, North Africa
- Principal Characters: Osman I, Murad I, Milosh Obravitch, Bayezit, Tamerlane, Mehmet the Conqueror, Selim I, Suleyman I, Selim II, Murad IV, Mustafa Kemal
- Genres: Nonfiction, History
- Subjects: Islam, Muslims, Fratricide, parricide, or filicide, World War I, Clocks or watches, Middle Ages, Greece or Greek people, Turkey or Turkish people, Buildings, Sign language
- Locales: Africa, Asia Minor, Balkans, Thrace, ancient, Middle East
Lords of the Horizons is not exactly a history. It is short on maps (there is only one, at the front of the book) and on chronology (although there is one, together with a list of Ottoman sultans and a brief glossary, toward the back of the book). One reads without having a genuine sense of what happened when and where in the Ottoman Empire, and Jason Goodwin’s narrative unfolds in something less than a straightforward manner. Still, the book is packed, even stuffed, with fascinating details related in a style so rich and evocative as to match the wildest excesses of the most...
[The entire page is 1879 words long]

