PRE-OTTOMAN TURKEY, CIRCA 1071-1330

By Claude Cahen

Pre-Ottoman Turkey is both an introduction to Ottoman Turkey and a book which considers the period on its own terms. Professor Cahen delineates the character and course of trends peculiar to the period; he traces them forward into Byzantium and backward into the vague eras of prehistory.

The first section gives the general picture of the great Seljukid Empire outside Asia Minor. The second section traces the political history of the Seljukids within Asia Minor. Moving into more specific topics, he offers in the third section a comparative study of society and institutions in Turkey itself before the Mongol period. Finally, the fourth and most special section considers those changes in Turkish history brought about by the Mongol invasion, the disintegration of the resulting Empire, and the growth of principalities of a new kind - one of which became the nucleus of the Byzantine Empire.

FIRST EDITION 

Taplinger Publishing Company (1968)