Dangerous Gifts is a major achievement. It is an original and sophisticated account of the European Powers' interventions in Egypt, Greece and the Lebanon in the nineteenth century. It triumphantly demonstrates that these were fluid and dynamic international political crises, and reveals the agency of the Ottoman state in them in a way that previous accounts of the 'Eastern question' have been unable to do.
Ozan Ozavci is Assistant Professor of Transimperial History at Utrecht University, and associate member at the Centre d'Études Turques, Ottomanes, Balkaniques et Centrasiatiques in Paris.