Between Two Worlds. Cemal Kafadar

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      Like many other books, this one took shape as a long adventure for its author. Along the way, I was fortunate to receive comments, guidance, encouragement, or admonition from a number of friends and colleagues, among whom it is a pleasure to mention Peter Brown, George Dedes, Suraiya Faroqhi, Jane Hathaway, Halil

nalcik, Ahmet Kara-mustafa, Ahmet Kuya

rvin Schick, Ru

senbike Togan, and Elizabeth Zachariadou. I am particularly grateful to Cornell Fleischer, whose thorough reading of and thoughtful commentary on the manuscript were of immense help in giving the book its final shape. They are probably unaware how much they contributed to the development of this book through not only intentional interventions but also casual remarks or general observations that I appropriated, and possibly twisted, to my own ends. Plunder, as I hope the readers of this book will come to agree, can coexist in harmony with the assumption, or presumption, of serving some good cause in the end.

      The critical tone of my historiographic evaluations should not obliterate the profound indebtedness I feel toward all those scholars whose works on the rise of the Ottoman state are surveyed here. Their findings and ideas, even when I disagreed with them, opened many pleasant vistas and doors for me.

      I also appreciate having had the chance to try out some earlier and partial versions of my arguments on audiences whose responses enabled me to focus on formulations that needed to be refined and paths that needed to be abandoned. Such opportunities were provided at the Brown Bag Lunch series of Princeton University's Near Eastern Studies Department, at Washington University in Saint Louis, at the Istanbul center of the American Research Institute in Turkey, and at the Murat Sanca Library workshop series in Istanbul.

      Chronology

1071	The Battle of Mantzikert: Seljuks defeat Byzantine army; the first great wave of Turkish migrations into Asia Minor.
1176	The Battle of Myriokephalon: Seljuks of R m defeat Byzantine army.
1177	D m.
1204	The Fourth Crusade: Latins occupy Constantinople; Lascarids start to rule in Nicaea; Comneni start to rule in Trebizond.
1220–37	The reign of ‘Al b m and render them into vassals.
1261	Byzantine capital moves from Nicaea back to Constantinople.
1276–	Baybars leads Mamluk forces into Asia Minor.
1277	Mongols (Ilkhanids) take direct control of Asia Minor.
1298	The revolt of Sülemish against Mongol administration in Anatolia; seems to have allowed frontier lords to undertake independent action.
1298–	Likely dates of earliest conquests (Bilecik, Yarhisar, etc.) by O n as gazi; authenticity