"Paul Wittek's The Rise of the Ottoman Empire was first published by the Royal Asiatic Society in 1938 and has been out of print for more than a quarter of a century. The present reissue of the text also brings together translations of his other studies on Ottoman history; five closely interconnected writings from the founding of the state to the Fall of Constantinople. All but one of these pieces reproduces the texts of lectures or conference papers delivered by Wittek between 1936 and 1938 when he was teaching at Universite Libre in Brussels, Belgium. The journals in which they were originally published are for the most part inaccessible except in specialist libraries, in a period when Wittek's activities as an Ottoman historian are coming under increasing study within the Anglo-Saxon world of scholarship. An introduction by Colin Heywood sets Wittek's work in its historical and historiographical context for the benefit of those students not privileged to experience it