Herbert Adams Gibbons’s The Foundation of the Ottoman Empire is a history of the rise of the Osmanlis from their obscure beginnings to the death of Bayezid I in 1403. Gibbons traces the emergence of the Ottoman state on the frontier between the medieval Byzantine and Islamic worlds, its early conquests in Anatolia and the Balkans, and the growth of its power until the great crisis brought by Timur.
Examining the origins and early expansion of a dynasty that would dominate the eastern Mediterranean for centuries, Gibbons addresses the much-debated question of how the Ottoman state arose. His account illuminates the late medieval struggle between Christendom and the rising Turkish power. Readers interested in the Ottomans, Byzantium, or the medieval Near East will find it valuable. This free EPUB edition makes available Gibbons’s study of the foundation of the Ottoman Empire.