The rise of the Ottoman dynasty to rule much of Europe and Asia is one of the most remarkable stories in history. In the thirteenth century the Ottomans ruled only one of a number of Turkoman principalities that ringed the decadent Byzantine state in western Anatolia. Within two centuries they had established an empire that encompassed not only the former Byzantine lands of Southeastern Europe and Anatolia but also Hungary and the Arab world, and that empire was to endure into modern times. Who were the Ottomans? Where did they come from? How did they establish their rule? And what was the result for both them and the people whom they came to dominate?