"This is a carefully wrought and unexpected combination of detailed social study, global systems analysis, critical historiography, and comparative history. An indispensable read for specialists in the field. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty." - CHOICE "An authoritative and meticulously researched comparison of the early modern world's two most successful 'Islamic' empires. Scholars have been waiting a long time for a book like this, which is not only the first to bring together Ottoman and Mughal history in a systematic way, but does so with a remarkable attentiveness to the concerns of 'history from below'. In short, this book sets the standard for a new kind of comparative, trans-imperial history of early modern Islamic societies." -- Professor Giancarlo Casale, University of Minnesota "This book presents a valuable head-to-head comparison of the two largest and longest-lasting Sunni Muslim empires in world history, which were also contemporaries and, arguably, "frenemies.

" Never content with battles-and-great-men accounts of history, Suraiya Faroqhi offers a top-to-bottom comparison of the full range of features of Ottoman and Mughal society, from court life to crafts to agriculture to slavery, never forgetting that all these elements changed from the sixteenth through the eighteenth century. Her prose is always lively and engaging, and her familiarity with the latest scholarship on both empires is astonishing." -- Jane Hathaway, Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor, Ohio State University, and author of The Chief Eunuch of the Ottoman Empire: From African Slave to Power-Broker "An extraordinary work of meticulous scholarship and unreservedly recommended for community, college, and university library collections." --Midwest Book Review.