In 1517, the Ottoman Sultan Selim "the Grim" conquered Egypt and brought his
empire for the first time in history into direct contact with the trading world
of the Indian Ocean. During the decades that followed, the Ottomans became
progressively more engaged in the affairs of this vast and previously unfamiliar
region, eventually to the point of launching a systematic ideological, military
and commercial challenge to the Portuguese Empire, their main rival for control
of the lucrative trade routes of maritime Asia.

The Ottoman Age of Exploration is the first comprehensive historical account
of this century-long struggle for global dominance, a struggle that raged from
the shores of the Mediterranean to the Straits of Malacca, and from the interior
of Africa to the steppes of Central Asia. Based on extensive research in
the archives of Turkey and Portugal, as well as materials written on three
continents and in a half dozen languages, it presents an unprecedented picture
of the global reach of the Ottoman state during the sixteenth century. It does
so through a dramatic recounting of the lives of sultans and viziers, spies,
corsairs, soldiers-of-fortune, and women from the imperial harem. Challenging
traditional narratives of Western dominance, it argues that the Ottomans were
not only active participants in the Age of Exploration, but ultimately bested
the Portuguese in the game of global politics by using sea power, dynastic
prestige, and commercial savoir faire to create their own imperial dominion
throughout the Indian Ocean.

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