Yet Ms Lovell contends that they administered only the final blows to an empire that was already on the brink.

ECONOMIST: A time when the West clamoured for free trade with China

The limitations of Ms Finkel's approach are most apparent in her perfunctory treatment of the empire's final, tumultuous years.

ECONOMIST: The Ottoman empire

It became an empire in the 1400s, and its final sovereign emperor died in 1533, officially ending the period of constructing the buildings and roads that lure visitors to this day.

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