The formation of Turkey : the Seljukid Sultanate of Rūm : eleventh to fourteenth century /

When the Turks are mentioned in history, we usually refer to the Ottoman Turks, whose empire lasted until WW I. This book deals with Seljukid Turkey, which predates the Ottomans. The important dates of the Seljukid Sultanate are 1071, when Alp Arslan defeated the Byzantine emperor Romanus Diogenes at Manzikert, thus ending Byzantine rule in Anatolia and establishing Seljukid Turkey, and 1243, when the Seljukid army was wiped out by the Mongols at Kosedag. Seljukid Turkey continued under Mongol domination, but the Mongols could not capture all the Turcoman chiefdoms, and one of these, the principality of Osman centered around Sogut in northwest Asia Minor, became the Ottoman Empire's birthplace. Cahen divides his history into four parts: pre-Mongol Turkey, life in pre-Mongol Turkey, the history of the Mongol period, and society and institutions under the Mongols. The book is packed with detail, and Cahen's translator has done nothing to make it more readable. However, the instructive chapters on economic life and the treatment of non-Muslims under the Seljukids are worth study. Medieval Turkey is little known in the English-speaking world; this book is an authoritative guide. Upper-division undergraduate students and above. J. A. S. Evans emeritus, University of British Columbia