“The Greatness and Collapse of the Ottoman Empire” is an amazing, like an oriental fairy tale, and exciting, like a detective story, the story of a powerful power that once spread like a stream of lava across the map of Asia and Europe. This formidable state, an irreconcilable enemy of the Russian Empire, knew triumphs and defeats, great achievements, palace coups and harem intrigues, lived through its long magnificent century before becoming mired in lies and corruption and disappearing forever...