The Race for Universal Monarchy

The sixteenth century saw the rise of two Mediterranean empires driven by apocalyptic fever who sought to bring Christianity and Islam together under the rule of one emperor. Ebru Turan’s new book The Race for Universal Monarchy: Apocalypticism and the Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry in the Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean looks at the Ottoman Habsburg rivalry through the lens of competing ideologies shaped by overlapping historical events. The Crusades shifted political ideologies in both Europe and the Middle East creating a need to justify acquiring power in line with religious end times beliefs. Both Charles V, King of Spain and Archduke of Austria, and Suleyman I, the Ottoman Sultan, not only viewed their clash as part of the usual political rivalry, both saw their […]