While European eclecticism is examined as a critical and experimental moment in western art history, little research has been conducted to provide an intellectual depth of field to the historicist pursuits of late Ottoman architects as they maneuvered through the nineteenth century s vast inventory of available styles and embarked on a revivalist/Orientalist program they identified as the Ottoman Renaissance. Ahmet A. Ersoy s book examines the complex historicist discourse underlying this belated renaissance through a close reading of a text conceived as the movement s canonizing manifesto:...