At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire remained the grandest and most powerful of Middle Eastern empires. One hitherto overlooked aspect

In the fabulous surroundings of the sacred city of Christianity and Islam, Constantinople or Istanbul, a young, innocent but desperate housewife of striking bea

This collection of articles by 14 Middle East historians is a pathbreaking work in the history of Middle Eastern women prior to the contemporary era. The collec

The "fascinating . . . lively" story of the Russian slave girl Roxelana, who rose from concubine to become the only queen of the Ottoman empire (New York Times)

The unprecedented political power of the Ottoman imperial harem in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is widely viewed as illegitimate and corrupting. This