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If you looked at Ottoman maps as the empire disintegrated, you would never have guessed that anything was wrong. Territories that had been annexed or had obtained independence decades or even a century earlier were still shown in imperial pink. As the de facto borders of the empire shrunk, students continued to see the same de jure borders proudly displayed on their classroom walls.

As historian Benjamin Fortna has detailed, in the early 20th century it was still common to see Ottoman maps that included Tunisia (a French protectorate since 1881), Egypt (largely independent since 1805, occupied by Britain since 1882), Bulgaria (autonomous since 1878), Cyprus (a British protectorate since 1878), and even Somalia (which had only been Ottoman in a nominal sense to begin with).

If you looked at Ottoman maps as the empire disintegrated, you would never have guessed that anything was wrong. Territories that had been annexed or had obtained independence decades or even a century earlier were still shown in imperial pink. As the de facto borders of the empire shrunk, students continued to see the same de jure borders proudly displayed on their classroom walls.

As historian Benjamin Fortna has detailed, in the early 20th century it was still common to see Ottoman maps that included Tunisia (a French protectorate since 1881), Egypt (largely independent since 1805, occupied by Britain since 1882), Bulgaria (autonomous since 1878), Cyprus (a British protectorate since 1878), and even Somalia (which had only been Ottoman in a nominal sense to begin with).

The Ottoman state took the lead perpetuating this cartographic delusion, printing official maps and censoring ones it considered harmful. But other parts of society followed its lead. Private publishers, for example, reflected the empire’s aspirational borders, whether out of personal patriotism or a desire to get their atlases approved by the Education Ministry.

When U.S. President Donald Trump announced his memorandum of understanding with Iran last week, Americans could be forgiven for feeling as if they had stumbled into the same world of deluded grandeur. The terms were at once vague and capitulatory, deferring all the important topics to future negotiations while still offering hints that they would not be........

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