I was just reading the other day about the historiography of the Ottoman Empire and how up until about 50 years ago it was warped around this central premise that it spent most of its existence as a rotting husk shambling inexorably towards its end, because everyone who had any real reason to write about its history had an ulterior motive that was served by that narrative: Christian westerners had religious, racist, and geopolitical motivations, Turkish writers had nationalist motivations (served by the “the Ottomans were corrupt and decadent and our national project has purged this and rejuvenated the nation” narratives), etc.

But then more recent and rigorous historiography is basically just “well, no, actually: while the Ottoman Empire was ultimately weaker militarily and economically compared to other powers in the early 20th century than it was hundreds of years earlier, it had not been notably more stagnant or ossified than European powers over that same period and instead went through distinct crises and periods of reform and progress; it ultimately lost out because of things that materially happened rather than some innate and unstoppable march towards doom caused by a moral or ideological rot.”