The Ottoman Empire has often been portrayed as the Islamic-Asian counterpart to the Christian-European West. However, the reality was entirely different: the multinational, multilingual, and multireligious region of the Ottomans stretched deep into the heart of Europe. In their expanse and flexibility, the Ottoman rulers considered themselves the new Romans. Marc David Baer narrates the remarkable rise of the Ottomans from a peripheral principality to a global empire, tracing their origins in their Turkish, Mongolian, Islamic, and Byzantine heritage. He analyzes how they used both religious tolerance and conversion to integrate the conquered peoples and how, in the 19th century, they adopted exclusivity, leading to ethnic cleansing events, genocide, and the dynasty's downfall after World War I. He overturns Western notions of the Renaissance, the Age of Discoveries, and the Reformation, highlighting different approaches to sexuality, orientalism, and genocide. The "Ottomans" is a magnificent portrait of a dynastic power, and the first to truly capture the interaction of East and West.