The book is a collection of studies originally presented as papers at two conferences devoted to the subject of “Enemy Images in the Era of Anti-Ottoman Wars.” It contains a preface and an introduction by the editors and twenty-eight contributions that are divided into four chapters. The first chapter explores the “classical image” of the Ottomans in Central and Eastern Europe; the second chapter tackles the “scenarios of threats” in the same regions at the time of Ottoman conquest and Russian-Polish conflict; the third investigates the Ottoman views on East Central Europe and Italy; and the fourth focuses on the antagonism that can be discerned in the field of the arts. The political, religious, and cultural conflicts of the early modern age are analyzed in relation to phenomena and reactions in contemporary arts, architecture, and urban developments. Although the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Russian-Polish relations fall within the scope of the book, its focus is the conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe. The purpose of the studies is — as is aptly expressed in the subtitle of the book — to assess a very controversial question: how was a quasi-continuous cultural exchange implemented between mortal enemies who at the same time were fostering mutual antagonism and constructing images of each other as enemies.

One of the most important novelties of the book is that it successfully integrates the viewpoints of historians and art historians. Thus it demonstrates convincingly that there was no constant definition of the enemy as such and that images of the enemy were always changing. These images were created predominantly using topoi (commonplaces) that could be varied according to shifting exigencies, and new models emerged when political, religious, and cultural circumstances changed. As the editors underline in the introduction, the strategies that the early modern age used in the construction of the image of the enemy were very ambitious and the standards were relatively high; they adeptly combined elements of denigration, contempt, polemic, and appreciation. An understanding of the subtleties of these methods and strategies is very important today in part because many of the prevailing patterns in our perceptions of the Other originate in them.

The potential audience for the book is rather large: it will be of interest to experts in European and Ottoman history, art history from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, and anyone who is interested in ideological issues, representation of power, and encounters of and cultural exchange between different civilizations. The material of the book is well organized. Each chapter contains historical and art historical studies, and even the seemingly local problems are addressed within the context of the book’s frame of reference. The only problem with the collection is that the studies included are so variegated (not to say scattered) in terms of their topics and the territories and periods concerned that in spite of the editors’ hard work the end product is rather uneven and does not follow a clear trajectory.

Over the course of the last two decades a new trend can be discerned in Ottoman and related European studies: the gradual incorporation of Ottoman history into a unified European history. An increasing number of books and studies have been written that, unlike earlier mainstream historical works, emphasize that the relationship between the Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe was in the main characterized by political, economic, and intellectual cooperation, not continuous hostility or a clash of civilizations or religions (cf. G. Poumarède, Pour en finir avec la croisade: Myths et réalités de la lutte contre les Turcs aux XVI^e et XVII^e siècles [2004]; J.-F. Solnon, Le Turban et la stambouline. L’Empire ottoman et l’Europe, XIV^e–XX^e siècle, affrontement et fascination réciproques [2009]; I. Almond, Two Faiths, One Banner [2009], etc.). There are historians who are even trying to liken every domestic Ottoman event to European developments of the age (cf., for example, the writings of Baki Tezcan, who maintains that phenomena of early modernity can be seen in the Ottoman world too). The greatest merit of the book in question here is that for the most part it avoids both extremes (total confrontation versus total integration) and gives a well-balanced picture of this complicated relationship in which hostility and cooperation were present simultaneously until the Ottomans ceased to be regarded as an ideological foe and came to be treated as an ordinary secular enemy or ally. This book is of great help in uncovering the transit road leading to the acceptance of the “archenemy of Christianity.”