How a small Turkish frontier principality became one of the longest-lasting empires in history. Wyman traces the Ottoman rise from the 1300s through the fall of Constantinople in 1453, examining the institutional innovations that enabled centuries of stability.
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Highlights
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The devshirme system was a radical meritocratic innovation
The Ottomans recruited Christian boys from the Balkans, converted and educated them, and promoted them based on ability. This created an administrative elite loyal to the sultan rather than to hereditary aristocracy.
The fall of Constantinople was a technology story as much as a military one
Sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453 not through superior numbers alone but through the largest cannon ever built — a technology that rendered the city's legendary walls obsolete overnight.