The Ottoman World / Edition 1

by Christine Woodhead

Overview

The Ottoman empire as a political entity comprised most of the present Middle East (with the principal exception of Iran), north Africa and south-eastern Europe. For over 500 years, until its disintegration during World War I, it encompassed a diverse range of ethnic, religious and linguistic communities with varying political and cultural backgrounds.

Yet, was there such a thing as an ‘Ottoman world’ beyond the principle of sultanic rule from Istanbul? Ottoman authority might have been established largely by military conquest, but how was it maintained for so long, over such distances and so many disparate societies? How did provincial regions relate to the imperial centre and what role was played in this by local elites? What did it mean in practice, for ordinary people, to be part of an ‘Ottoman world’?

Arranged in five thematic sections, with contributions from thirty specialist historians, The Ottoman World addresses these questions, examining aspects of the social and socio-ideological composition of this major pre-modern empire, and offers a combination of broad synthesis and detailed investigation that is both informative and intended to raise points for future debate. The Ottoman World provides a unique coverage of the Ottoman empire, widening its scope beyond Istanbul to the edges of the empire, and offers key coverage for students and scholars alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415711784
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/07/2013
Series:	Routledge Worlds
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	560
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.60(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Christine Woodhead is Teaching Fellow in History at the University of Durham.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction PART I: FOUNDATIONS 2. Nomads and tribes in the Ottoman empire 3. The Ottoman economy in the early imperial age 4. The law of the land 5. A kadi court in the Balkans: Sofia in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries 6. Imarets 7. Sufis in the age of state-building and confessionalization PART II: OTTOMANS AND OTHERS 8. Royal and other households 9. ‘On the tranquillity and repose of the sultan’: the construction of a topos 10. Of translation and empire: sixteenth-century Ottoman imperial interpreters as renaissance go-betweens 11. Ottoman languages 12. Ethnicity, race, religion and social class: Ottoman markers of difference 13. The Kızılbaş of Syria and Ottoman Shiism 14. The reign of violence: the celalis c. 1550-1700 PART III: THE WIDER EMPIRE 15. Between universalistic claims and reality: Ottoman frontiers in the early modern period 16. Defending and administering the frontier: the case of Ottoman Hungary 17. The Ottoman frontier in Kurdistan in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 18. Conquest, urbanization and plague networks in the Ottoman empire, 1453-1600 19. Peripheralization of the Ottoman-Algerian elite 20. On the edges of an Ottoman world: non-Muslim Ottoman merchants in Amsterdam PART IV: ORDINARY PEOPLE 21. Masters, servants and slaves: household formation among the urban notables of early Ottoman Aleppo 22. Subject to the sultan’s approval: seventeenth and eighteenth-century artisans negotiating guild agreements in Istanbul 23. Literacy among artisans and tradesmen in Ottoman Cairo 24. ‘Guided by the Almighty’: the journey of Stephan Schultz in the Ottoman empire, 1752-56 25. The right to choice: Ottoman, ecclesiastical and communal justice in Ottoman Greece 26. Ottoman women as legal and marital subjects 27. Forms and forums of expression: Istanbul and beyond, 1600-1800 PART V: LATER OTTOMANS 28. The old regime and the Ottoman Middle East 29. The transformation of the Ottoman fiscal regime c.1600-1850 30. Provincial power-holders and the empire in the late Ottoman world: conflict or partnership? 31. The Arabic-speaking world in the Ottoman period: a socio-political analysis

Editorial Reviews

"A perfect combination of history and historiography, senior and junior scholars, archives and secondary materials, established trends in the field and sophisticated new methods, this book will be illuminating for both those long familiar with the Ottomans and those encountering the empire for the first time. If one is going to read just one book on the Ottoman Empire, this should be it. A truly impressive achievement." – Alan Mikhail, Yale University, USA.

"A highly useful instructional text that should be engaged by not only those teaching "Middle Eastern history" but those offering courses in European early modern history as well. There are a number of valuable intersections provided by a new generation of scholars who consciously engage "Europe" as part of the Ottoman story. For this reason, the book is probably the best collection of its kind on the early modern period in the market today and should provide a foundation for the next generation of scholars interested in expanding the study of the Ottoman Empire in order to fully engage European and Global history." - Isa Blumi, Leipzig University, Germany and Georgia State University, USA

"Woodhead has assembled an excellent group of Ottomanists whose diversity of interests, training, and age adds to the value of this volume... Each essay is a gem unto itself, based on the individual author's specialized area of research. As a whole, the volume provides a detailed understanding of the richness and complexity of the empire as well as raising points for future debates, going well beyond what any narrative account is able to do. This book is indispensible for anyone interested in new trends in Ottoman research. Summing up: Essential." - Choice

"A perfect combination of history and historiography, senior and junior scholars, archives and secondary materials, established trends in the field and sophisticated new methods, this book will be illuminating for both those long familiar with the Ottomans and those encountering the empire for the first time. If one is going to read just one book on the Ottoman Empire, this should be it. A truly impressive achievement." – Alan Mikhail, Yale University, USA.

"A highly useful instructional text that should be engaged by not only those teaching "Middle Eastern history" but those offering courses in European early modern history as well. There are a number of valuable intersections provided by a new generation of scholars who consciously engage "Europe" as part of the Ottoman story. For this reason, the book is probably the best collection of its kind on the early modern period in the market today and should provide a foundation for the next generation of scholars interested in expanding the study of the Ottoman Empire in order to fully engage European and Global history." - Isa Blumi, Leipzig University, Germany and Georgia State University, USA

From the Publisher