At the turn of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire straddled three continents and encompassed extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity among the millions of people living within its borders. This text provides a concise history of the late empire between 1789 and 1918, turbulent years marked by incredible social change.
At the turn of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire straddled three continents and encompassed extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity among the estimated thirty million people living within its borders. It was perhaps the most cosmopolitan state in the world--and possibly the most volatile. A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire now gives scholars and general readers a concise history of the late empire between 1789 and 1918, turbulent years marked by incredible social change. Moving past standard treatments of the subject, M. Sükrü Hanioglu emphasizes broad historical trends and processes more than single events. He examines the imperial struggle to centralize amid powerful opposition from local rulers, nationalist and other groups, and foreign powers. He looks closely at the socioeconomic changes this struggle wrought and addresses the Ottoman response to the challenges of modernity. Hanioglu shows how this history is not only essential to comprehending modern Turkey, but is integral to the histories of Europe and the world. He brings Ottoman society marvelously to life in all its facets--cultural, diplomatic, intellectual, literary, military, and political--and he mines imperial archives and other documents from the period to describe it as it actually was, not as it has been portrayed in postimperial nationalist narratives. A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the legacy left in this empire's ruins--a legacy the world still grapples with today.
Up until the end of the eighteenth century, the way Ottomans used their clocks conformed to the inner logic of their own temporal culture. However, this began to change rather dramatically during the nineteenth century, as the Ottoman Empire was increasingly assimilated into the European-dominated global economy and the project of modern state building began to gather momentum. In Reading Clocks, Alla Turca, Avner Wishnitzer unravels the complexity of Ottoman temporal culture and for the first time tells the story of its transformation. He explains that in their attempt to attain better surveillance capabilities and higher levels of regularity and efficiency, various organs of the reforming Ottoman state developed elaborate temporal constructs in which clocks played an increasingly important role. As the reform movement spread beyond the government apparatus, emerging groups of officers, bureaucrats, and urban professionals incorporated novel time-related ideas, values, and behaviors into their self-consciously “modern” outlook and lifestyle. Acculturated in the highly regimented environment of schools and barracks, they came to identify efficiency and temporal regularity with progress and the former temporal patterns with the old political order. Drawing on a wealth of archival and literary sources, Wishnitzer’s original and highly important work presents the shifting culture of time as an arena in which Ottoman social groups competed for legitimacy and a medium through which the very concept of modernity was defined. Reading Clocks, Alla Turca breaks new ground in the study of the Middle East and presents us with a new understanding of the relationship between time and modernity.
The Ottoman Empire was one of the most important non-Western states to survive from medieval to modern times, and played a vital role in European and global history. It continues to affect the peoples of the Middle East, the Balkans and central and western Europe to the present day. This new survey examines the major trends during the latter years of the empire; it pays attention to gender issues and to hotly-debated topics such as the treatment of minorities. In this second edition, Donald Quataert has updated his lively and authoritative text, revised the bibliographies, and included brief biographies of major figures on the Byzantines and the post Ottoman Middle East. This accessible narrative is supported by maps, illustrations and genealogical and chronological tables, which will be of help to students and non-specialists alike. It will appeal to anyone interested in the history of the Middle East.
An exploration of the ways in which children learned and were taught to read, against the background of the transition from Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic. This study gives us a fresh perspective on the transition from empire to republic by showing us the ways that reading was central to the construction of modernity.
Contrary to the stereotypical images of torture, narcotics and brutal sexual abuse traditionally associated with Ottoman or 'Turkish' prisons, Kent Schull argues that, during the Second Constitutional Period (1908-1918), they played a crucial role in attempts to transform the empire.
This title is available online in its entirety in Open Access. This volume explores the ways childhood was experienced, lived and remembered in the late Ottoman Empire and its successor states in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when rapid change placed unprecedented demands on the young.
In this beautifully illustrated overview, Renée Worringer provides a clear and comprehensive account of the longevity, pragmatism, and flexibility of the Ottoman Empire in governing over vast territories and diverse peoples. A Short History of the Ottoman Empire uses clear headings, themes, text boxes, primary source translations, and maps to assist students in understanding the Empire’s complex history.
