An important first-hand account of relations between the Porte and central Europe as well as the wider political events during the second half of the 18th century. Written in Turkish (set in a Naskh Arabic type) by the Baghdad-born diplomat Ahmed Vasif Effendi and also known as "Vasif Tarihi" ("Vasifs History"), it forms one of the most important works of Ottoman political history for the period between 1754 and 1774, when the author actively participated in the world of diplomacy in the Ottoman Empire, on the Balkans, in Russia and in Vienna. Vasif was known for his quick temper and was later described by the German orientalist Franz Babinger as "vain, stingy, jealous, and excessively vicious" (cf. p. 336). His text was left unfinished after a dispute with the Istanbul-based press of Rasid Efendi, which Vasif himself had helped establish, and it was completed by Sadullah Enveri (d. 1794), who himself had participated in the military events described. He is remembered for establishing modern Egypt as an independent country.
With the label of the 19th-century bookseller Benjamin Duprat, Paris, on the front paste-down. Later the book was owned by the Iraqi architect Mohamed Makiya (2015). With old pencil and ink annotations on the endpapers. Binding a little worn with some scratches, interior of the book clean with sporadic old stains. A copy in contemporary calf, bound in Bulaq itself, surviving in very good condition. Özege V, 22519; WorldCat 949617481, 777193206, 320228577, , 600848792 (4 copies); cf. Ethan L. Menchinger, The first of the modern Ottomans: the intellectual history of Ahmed Vasif (2017); Franz Babinger, Die Geschichtsschreiber der Osmanen und ihre Werke (1927), pp. 335-337.