This book encompasses the entire scope of the Ottoman Empire’s expansion from the conquest of Constantinople to that of Crete. It is also the story of Hayrettin Barbarossa, the great corsair whom Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent appointed commander of the imperial navy. The author, Kâtip Çelebi (1609–57), was the quintessential Ottoman intellectual. He was a scholar and one of the most eminent travel writes in the long history of the genre. His History of the Maritime Wars of the Turks was the second book published in the Ottoman empire and the first with illustrations.   The first four chapters of the original book were translated in 1831; they are here presented along with a new preface and commentary by Svatopluk Soucek, a leading scholar of Ottoman naval history. In addition, he provides summaries of all the chapters that were not translated in 1831, as well as translations of some significant extracts, new annotation, and a bibliography.   Svatopluk Soucek is the author of works relating to Ottoman naval history and to Central Asia. His books include Piri Reis & Turkish Mapmaking after Columbus: The Khalili Portolan Atlas; Studies in Ottoman Naval History and Maritime Geography; The Persian Gulf: Its Past and Present; and A History of Inner Asia.