"Book Review: Osman`s Dream by Caroline Finkel
Feb 8, 2006, 10:43 GMT
Readable survey of one of the world`s great empires. Founded by the Turkoman Emir Osman, who had dreamed that he was destined to do so, the Ottoman Empire lasted 600 years and came to incorporate much of western Asia, northeastern Africa and southeastern Europe. Yet, as British historian Finkel tells it in her U.S. debut, though the dominion may have been vast, it was also tenuous. The Ottomans conquered most of the Arabian peninsula, for instance, but for some reason could never take control of the rich province of Yemen, 'singularly failing to subdue it' over the course of a century."
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