'This book is one of the most important to be published in Ottoman history for at least a decade, and engagement with its arguments will surely shape the field for many years to come. As with any book that offers such a bold, rich, and thorough reinterpretation, some readers will quibble over particular facets of its argument, and others will mistakenly dismiss the new framework out of hand. All of them, however, will have to contend with the force of its intervention and the elegance of the empirical craftsmanship that built it.' Alan Mikhail, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

• Introduction: Ottoman political history in the Early Modern period; 1. One market, one money, one law: the making of an imperial market society and a law that applies to all; 2. The question of succession: bringing the dynasty under legal supervision; 3. The court strikes back: the making of Ottoman absolutism; 4. A new empire for a second Osman: Osman II in power (1618–22); 5. The absolutist dispensation overturned: a regicide; 6. The second empire goes public: the age of the Janissaries; Conclusion: early modernity and the Ottoman decline.

'This book is one of the most important to be published in Ottoman history for at least a decade, and engagement with its arguments will surely shape the field for many years to come. As with any book that offers such a bold, rich, and thorough reinterpretation, some readers will quibble over particular facets of its argument, and others will mistakenly dismiss the new framework out of hand. All of them, however, will have to contend with the force of its intervention and the elegance of the empirical craftsmanship that built it.' Alan Mikhail, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

• Introduction: Ottoman political history in the Early Modern period; 1. One market, one money, one law: the making of an imperial market society and a law that applies to all; 2. The question of succession: bringing the dynasty under legal supervision; 3. The court strikes back: the making of Ottoman absolutism; 4. A new empire for a second Osman: Osman II in power (1618–22); 5. The absolutist dispensation overturned: a regicide; 6. The second empire goes public: the age of the Janissaries; Conclusion: early modernity and the Ottoman decline.