ABSTRACT
This book focused on the political and structural changes that occurred during the earliest phase of the Turkish expansion in Byzantine Asia Minor from the late 1030s through the 1120s. This thematic choice unavoidably entailed a focus on rather traditional historiographical topics and may ignore some crucial aspects of social and economic living conditions. Yet it seems to be justified by the fact that a comprehensive book-length account of these events has never been written in any of the major western languages. I also hope to have been able to provide a number of new insights and to offer some important revisions of the modern Turkish master narrative. Moreover, it seems that certain scholarly opinions on social and economic developments in Asia Minor depend upon oversimplified interpretations of political and military events and thus may be modified in the light of a new narrative of the Turkish expansion.
