History is so fascinating. I love comparing life today to life in the past. What have we learned? What errors are we repeating? My Uncle John got me hooked on history through tales he wove somewhere around fifth grade for me.

I will be the first to admit I’m not one to dig through dry tomes to find these answers. Give me a story, a documentary or historical romance any day. That’s how I love to learn 🙂

While not a romance, I recently became enthralled with a Netflix miniseries called Rise of Empires: Ottoman. The format moved from a regular acted-out story to input from authors who specialize in the time period then back to story. It kept it really interesting.

Disclaimer, my cousin Lars is one of the authors who offered input.

I have to say that I’m proud of him. He did really well.

The mini-series also had narrators. Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister from Game of Thrones) and Halit Ergenç did an excellent job detailing the historical events.

I don’t want to give any spoilers, but will say the ingenuity that went into the battle planning was mind-boggling. After the first episode, I was interested enough to check on the historical accuracy of the story and found it to match my resources for the most part. There was a bit of drama thrown in unnecessarily, but it didn’t change the accuracy of the main events.

Here is the trailer for the series:

While I planned to watch an episode a night for six nights, that didn’t happen. The story hooked me, and I ended up binge-watching the final four episodes.

If you are into history, I do recommend the series (and not just since Lars is in it). When I looked for that trailer on YouTube, I also saw some reviews, and I am clearly not the only person who enjoyed it.

If you are more of a reader than a watcher, you might want to check out Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire That Rescued Western Civilization by Lars Brownworth. Now that my mind is on the Ottomans, I might have to read it again myself 🙂