The rise of Constantinople and the later Ottoman Empire are well known, less well understood are the three centuries in between. This book poses the questions, what led to the decline of the Byzantine Empire and what happened in the intervening years before the rise of the Ottomans?

The Formation of Turkey is the translation of the late Professor Calude Cahen's La Turquie Pre-Ottomane. Based upon a proud knowedge of the source materials, Oriental, Greek and Western, it provides a detailed narrative of the rise and apogee of the Seljukid sultanate of Rum, the first Turkish state in Anatolia, its defeat by the Mongols and subsequent disappearance, to be followed by the fragmented Turkish successor-states, out of which the Ottoman Empire was to develop. Two of the four parts of the book deal in detail with the social, institutional, economic and cultural history of the Seljukid sultanate, and the whole work thus presents a unique and comprehensive survey of the formation of Turkey before the Ottomans. It will be essential reading for students of Turkish history, and a most valuable introduction for historians approaching the subject from other fields.
Professor Claude Cahen was one of the foremost French scholars in th field of Muslkim Near Estern history. P.M. Holt, the translator of Cahen's book, has also lightly edited it for this readership, and is Emeritus Professor of the History of the Near and Middle East, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and General Editor of the series A History of the Near East.