Benjamin C. Fortna is professor of history and director of the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona and formerly professor of the history of the Middle East, SOAS, at the University of London. He received his degrees from Yale, Columbia, and the University of Chicago, and has published numerous books on the Ottoman Empire, the early Turkish Republic, and modern Turkey. He has appeared on the BBC programs Who Do You Think You Are? and The Ottomans: Europe's Muslim Emperors. He lives in Tucson, AZ.