This book presents and discusses, in the form of historical studies-essays, various significant aspects of the history of the first six centuries of the Ottoman Empire (13th-18th), with an emphasis on the two centuries of great conquests and territorial expansion of the sultanate (15th-16th) as well as on the first of the centuries of its decline (17th).

The periods of rule of the great conqueror sultans Mehmed II the Conqueror (1444 - 1446, 1451 - 1481), Selim I (1512-1520), and Suleiman I the Lawgiver (1520 - 1566) are particularly analyzed, who is known in Western historiography by the honorific title 'The Magnificent', as well as the also significant periods of rule of Murad IV (1623 - 1640) and Mehmed IV (1648 - 1687).

A special biographical essay deals with the Ottoman dynastic house of the Köprülü family (Köprülüs), who held the highest Ottoman office of 'Grand Vizier' from the second half of the 17th to the second half of the 18th century.

Another special essay addresses the information from the early Ottoman historiographical and chronicle sources regarding the Fall of Constantinople (1453), while Ottoman and generally Eastern Muslim sources examining the Byzantine-Ottoman relations of the era from the late 13th/early 14th to the second half of the 15th century (with the completion of the conquest of Byzantium and its last strongholds) are examined more specifically (with the citation of bibliographic details) in a special appendix at the end.

This special appendix is followed by a detailed chronology of Ottoman history (1st half of the 13th - early 19th century), a glossary of Ottoman military-administrative terms and concepts, a table of Ottoman sultans, and a general bibliography of Greek and foreign standalone aids (monographs, collective volumes, collections of reprints or reissues of studies and articles, etc.).

An introductory essay precedes that provides a detailed overview of the relevant Greek-language bibliography of standalone aids, written either by Greeks or by foreign scholars (in Greek translation), while the entire work is completed with illustrations and an insert map.

Finally, the second edition includes an introductory essay with an overview of the Ottoman history of the period 1288/89-1451, with additional bibliographic references, while the third edition includes a special appendix for the Ottoman original sources of the 16th - 18th centuries.