Sultans of Rome: The Turkish World Expansion

It has become conventional to think of the Turkish capture of Constantinople in 1453 as an Asiatic conquest. The Turks originated in Asia-it is true-but Constantinople was conquered from the west not the east: the Ottomans became a European power before they became a Middle Eastern one and remained a primarily European power. Indeed, the Middle East and even most of Anatolia itself was conquered from Europe. This demonstrates that it was no sudden rush of semi-civilized horse-riding nomads ...