New Turkes: Dramatizing Islam and the Ottomans in Early Modern England

Early Modern England was obsessed with the 'turke'. Following the first Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1529 the printing presses brought endless prayer sheets, pamphlets and books concerning this 'infidel' threat before the public in the vernacular for the first time. As this body of knowledge increased, stimulated by a potent combination of domestic politics, further Ottoman incursions and trade, English notions of Islam and of the 'turke' became nuanced in a way that begins to question the ri...