Ottoman Warfare 1500-1700

If you are looking for a fun entertaining military history of the Ottoman empire look elsewhere. This book is less concerned with the outcome of Ottoman wars and more with exploring the process. Murphey's work is well researched with almost 50 pages of citations, equal to about a quarter of the length of the reading material! He also provides excellent maps and charts that you probably wont find elsewhere due to his use of original Ottoman sources. Overall if its a great reference to have, but only if you're already interested in the subject.

Only a few pages of information on actual Ottoman military tactics. Most of it is about administration, cost, politics, how they motivated troops, etc..

Finally, a book that goes above and beyond what we know about the Ottoman Military machine, perhaps the finest of its day at the times mentioned. This book goes beyond the Turkish Neo-Ottoman propoganda, and the Western anti-Ottoman propoganda to give you a scientific look into the Ottoman military in a very engaging manner. Highly recommended.

great book! describes all specifics of ottoman warfare from logistics to motivation to battles. Great overview for anyone taking an ottoman history course.

Really good - a lot of detail.

Murphey should get an astounding applause for his work. There is an incredible appeal that 'drains' you right into the pages of endless original arguments. The Ottoman Devlet (not Empire if you read the book carefully, I borrowed Maksudoglu terms for the Ottoman) finally received a fair judgement for their history. The research was acurately done with rare details, those which never surfaced before, which cleared out any pontless subjectivity mostly found on previous studies of the Ottomans. 'The sick man' was made 'sick' in the first place. The rationalization of the Ottoman military might was the best part in the book. I am not surprised if this work becomes a classic.

This is an amazing book - I'm, currently, reading it for the third time around as, each time I read it, I discover more insight than previously. Disregard those that tell you it doesn't deal with the nitty-gritty of Ottoman battles - that's not necessary; there's heaps available elsewhere. This book deals with the mechanics of Ottoman warfare - and dispels a good few myths, along the way. The book is for serious military historians - not for those interested in a quick-fix-type book that tells you how amazing the Ottomans were and how invincible they were. It explains how human were the Ottoman soldiers and, absolutely vitally, clarifies under what constraints, disadvantages, and difficulties the Ottoman soldiers and their leadership had to operate. The book is a real wonder - very comparable to Treadgold's "Byzantium and its Army 284-1081" (though less dry than that brilliant work) - and will supply all the information required for you to instigate a realistic Ottoman wargames campaign - if that may be your desire. Rhoads Murphey is superb; I only wish I'd studied under him - and that I could give this work ten stars.

It did not meet my expectations, being mainly about the logistics not military history in the sense of covering any actual battles in any depth. Some organisational info, but not enough; little on weapons, tactics etc. What is there is interesting enough but it does not provided a real in depth study in a military sense of the topic.

I found this book as interesting as it was useful, particularly as I have been using it to understand what made the Ottoman military machine. As such I bought it as part of my research into chosen names in Ottoman history - where were they born, how were they trained, what did they do, etc. As any student of Ottoman history already knows many of their statesmen were also soldiers, because that is how Turks did things on the steppe - there was no other way to do it. You had to be commander, administrator and spiritual leader - you couldn't delegate. This book gave me almost all the details I needed while opening my eyes to what it was that made the Ottoman military machine so formidable for so long. If you're interested in military history per se you should couple this book with Uyar and Erickson's "A Military History of the Ottomans", another excellent work that takes you into the world of strategy and tactics, with examples from actual battles.