The siege of Mosul and Ottoman-Persian relations 1718-1743

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Robert Olson's "The Siege of Mosul and Ottoman-Persian Relations, 1718-1743: A Study of Rebellion in the Capital and War in the Provinces of the Ottoman Empire" tells the epic story of how the failed economic and diplomatic polices of the Ottoman Empire from 1718 to 1743 resulted in the inability of the Porte to come to the aid of the people of Mosul in 1743 when it was attacked by Nadir Shah Afshar, the greatest Shah of Persia since the time of Shah Abbas the Great. Olson brilliantly accounts the reasons why Nadir Shah, the great conqueror of Mughal India in 1739, was also unable to capture Mosul in 1743. The siege became a symbol of patriotic war, a jihad, for the defense of the homeland. This book could hardly have appeared at a more propitious time in the history of the peoples of Iraq and Iran and the Middle East. In a new introduction, Olson stresses that the major geopolitical and geostrategic consequence of the siege was that Great Britain and Russia--two non-Muslim empires--were then to dominate the Middle East and Central Asia (and India) right up to 1948. The Ottoman and Persian failures at Mosul in 1743 should have served as lessons well learned. But 274 years later, as the current 'Battle for Mosul' rages--they were not.

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