This is an English translation of a critical portrait of the Ottoman capital of Istanbul during the days of the Sultan Abd al-Hamid.

The subject of this vast, astonishing and brilliantly readable work of history is the bizarre story of the Ottoman Empire, seen through the lives and actions of

The Ottoman Empire began in 1453 when Mehmed the Conqueror entered Constantinople on a white horse, and it ended in 1924 when the final sultan, Abdulmecid, hurr