A general introduction on: the early Ottoman emirate; methods of conquest and patterns of expansion in the Balkans rival claims to war-leadership; competition, cooperation, absorption; the rewriting of history by subsequent Ottoman chroniclers. To be followed by increasing concentration on : political, social, cultural interactions; decapitations and amalgamations in town and country; the emergence and growth of the "Ottoman system" as a series of successive incorporations of the pre-Ottoman or non-Ottoman social formations and systems of land tenure; giving and receiving; what is "Ottoman", what is "Balkan"; problems of talking about : the Ottoman empire in Balkan space, the Balkans under Ottoman rule, the Balkan lands in Ottoman times.
