Like Charles H, the Sick Man of Europe was 'an unconscionable time dying'. Time and again from the seventeenth century observers predicted the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, yet it outlived its rivals. As late as 1910 it straddled three continents. This book offers a fascinating overview of the Ottoman Empire's decline from the failure to take Vienna in 1683 to the abolition of the Sultanate in 1922 by Mustafa Kemall, after a revolutionary upsurge of Turkish national pride. The narrative deals with constantly recurring problems and also gives special emphasis to the challenges of the early twentieth century, when railways and oilfields gave new importance to Ottoman lands in the Middle East. Recent events have put the issues that troubled the later Sultans back on the world agenda. Names like Basra and Mosul again make the headlines. We read of the Kurdish struggle for survival, of Armenian aspirations for independence and of the Muslim character of Sarajevo in what was once Yugoslavia. The Ottoman past has great relevance to the changing map of Eastern Europe and Western Asia in this last decade of the century. 'A marvellously readable book based on massive research' Robert Blake 'Readable and informative' John Keegan, Daily Telegraph 'A scholarly, readable and balanced history' Independent on Sunday Alan Palmer is the author of eight historical biographies, including Tsar Alexander I, Metternich, Bernadotte, Bismarck, and Kaiser Wilhelm II. He is also the author of the Penguin Dictionary of Modern History, 1789-1945, and the Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth Century History.