Trading with the Ottomans

Trading with the Ottomans

Author: Despina Vlami

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2014-12-05

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 0857736809

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Arguably, trade is the engine of history, and the acceleration in what you mightcall 'globalism' from the beginning of the last millennium has been driven by communities interacting with each other through commerce and exchange. The Ottoman empire was a trading partner for the rest of the world, and therefore the key link between the west and the middle east in the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries. much academic attention has been given to the east india Company, but less well known is the Levant Company, which had the exclusive right to trade with the Ottoman empire from 1581 to 1825. The Levant Company exported British manufacturing, colonial goods and raw materials, and imported silk, cotton, spices, currants and other Levantine goods. it set up 'factories' (trading establishments) across Ottoman lands and hired consuls, company employees and agents from among its members, as well as foreign tradesmen and locals. here, despina vlami outlines the relationship between the Ottoman empire and the Levant Company, and traces the company's last glimpses of prosperity combined with slump periods and tension, as both the Ottoman and the British empire faced significant change and war. she points out that the growth of 'free' trade and the end of protectionism coincided with modernisation and reforms, and while doing so, provides a new lens through which to view the decline of the Ottoman world.


Levantines of the Ottoman World: Communities, Identities, and Cultures

Levantines of the Ottoman World: Communities, Identities, and Cultures

Author: Erik Blackthorne-O’Barr

Publisher: Ibn Haldun University Press

Published: 2023-12-20

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13:

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In this insightful volume, a range of scholars from different backgrounds and disciplines delves into the intricate world of Levantine Studies, unraveling the multifaceted history, identities, and communities that have shaped the region. Spanning the long nineteenth century until the present day, this collection offers a fresh and nuanced perspective on the Levant, challenging traditional paradigms and shedding light on previously unexplored aspects of Levantine life. Through their meticulous research and compelling narratives, the authors explore the hidden histories of marginalized populations, examine the formation of communal ties beyond conventional affiliations, and shed light on the daily complexities of Levantine life through the lens of individual experiences and microhistories. As the field has undergone shifts in focus and methodology, this volume reflects – and pushes the boundaries of – the diversity and complexity of contemporary Levantine Studies. It opens up new avenues for research and grapples with the pressing questions of our era, including the environmental and material foundations of cosmopolitan lifestyles, the sociocultural reverberations of imperialism, and the impact of global crisis on our understanding of the Levant. With its rich insights and thought-provoking analysis, Levantines of the Ottoman World: Communities, Identities, and Cultures offers a compelling and comprehensive exploration of Levantine Studies that will captivate readers, offer an indispensable resource for scholars, and spark further inquiry into this fascinating field.


Levant

Levant

Author: Philip Mansel

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2011-05-24

Total Pages: 497

ISBN-13: 0300176228

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Not so long ago, in certain cities on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived and flourished side by side. What can the histories of these cities tell us? Levant is a book of cities. It describes three former centers of great wealth, pleasure, and freedom—Smyrna, Alexandria, and Beirut—cities of the Levant region along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. In these key ports at the crossroads of East and West, against all expectations, cosmopolitanism and nationalism flourished simultaneously. People freely switched identities and languages, released from the prisons of religion and nationality. Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived and worshipped as neighbors.Distinguished historian Philip Mansel is the first to recount the colorful, contradictory histories of Smyrna, Alexandria, and Beirut in the modern age. He begins in the early days of the French alliance with the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century and continues through the cities' mid-twentieth-century fates: Smyrna burned; Alexandria Egyptianized; Beirut lacerated by civil war.Mansel looks back to discern what these remarkable Levantine cities were like, how they differed from other cities, why they shone forth as cultural beacons. He also embarks on a quest: to discover whether, as often claimed, these cities were truly cosmopolitan, possessing the elixir of coexistence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews for which the world yearns. Or, below the glittering surface, were they volcanoes waiting to erupt, as the catastrophes of the twentieth century suggest? In the pages of the past, Mansel finds important messages for the fractured world of today.


Freemasonry in the Ottoman Empire

Freemasonry in the Ottoman Empire

Author: Dorothe Sommer

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-01-30

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0857725548

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The network of freemasons and Masonic lodges in the Middle East is an opaque and mysterious one, and is all too often seen - within the area - as a vanguard for Western purposes of regional domination. But here, Dorothe Sommer explains how freemasonry in Greater Syria at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century actually developed a life of its own, promoting local and regional identities. She stresses that during the rule of the Ottoman Empire, freemasonry was actually one of the first institutions in what is now Syria and Lebanon which overcame religious and sectarian divisions. Indeed, the lodges attracted more participants - such as the members of the Trad and Yaziji Family, Khaireddeen Abdulwahab, Hassan Bayhum, Alexander Barroudi and Jurji Yanni - than any other society or fraternity.


Izmir and the Levantine World, 1550-1650

Izmir and the Levantine World, 1550-1650

Author: Daniel Goffman

Publisher: Publications on the Near East

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13:

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Traces how the backwater town of Izmir (Smyrna) on the Aegean coast of Turkey, became a major seaport of the Ottoman empire, an arena of rival western European traders, a magnet for marauding pirates, and a hotbed of radical millenarians and mystics. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or


Ottoman Odyssey

Ottoman Odyssey

Author: Alev Scott

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2019-05-07

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1643131664

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An exploration of the contemporary influence of the Ottoman Empire on the wider world, as the author uncovers the new Ottoman legacy across Europe and the Middle East. Alev Scott’s odyssey began when she looked beyond Turkey’s borders for contemporary traces of the Ottoman Empire. Their 800 years of rule ended a century ago—and yet, travelling through twelve countries from Kosovo to Greece to Palestine, she uncovers a legacy that’s vital and relevant; where medieval ethnic diversity meets twenty-first century nationalism—and displaced people seek new identities. It's a story of surprises. An acolyte of Erdogan in Christian-majority Serbia confirms the wide-reaching appeal of his authoritarian leadership. A Druze warlord explains the secretive religious faction in the heart of the Middle East. The palimpsest-like streets of Jerusalem's Old Town hint at the Ottoman co-existence of Muslims and Jews. And in Turkish Cyprus, Alev Scott rediscovers a childhood home. In every community, history is present as a dynamic force. Faced by questions of exile, diaspora and collective memory, Alev Scott searches for answers from the cafes of Beirut to the refugee camps of Lesbos. She uncovers in Erdogan's nouveau-Ottoman Turkey a version of the nostalgic utopias sold to disillusioned voters in Europe and America. And yet—as she relates with compassion, insight, and humor—diversity is the enduring, endangered heart of this fascinating region.


Living in the Ottoman Realm

Living in the Ottoman Realm

Author: Christine Isom-Verhaaren

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2016-04-11

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0253019486

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Living in the Ottoman Realm brings the Ottoman Empire to life in all of its ethnic, religious, linguistic, and geographic diversity. The contributors explore the development and transformation of identity over the long span of the empire's existence. They offer engaging accounts of individuals, groups, and communities by drawing on a rich array of primary sources, some available in English translation for the first time. These materials are examined with new methodological approaches to gain a deeper understanding of what it meant to be Ottoman. Designed for use as a course text, each chapter includes study questions and suggestions for further reading.


The Late Ottoman Empire and Egypt

The Late Ottoman Empire and Egypt

Author: Elizabeth H Shlala

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-31

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 1351859552

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Law and identification transgressed political boundaries in the nineteenth-century Levant. Over the course of the century, Italo-Levantines- elite and common- exercised a strategy of resilient hybridity whereby an unintentional form of legal imperialism took root in Egypt. This book contributes to a vibrant strand of global legal history that places law and other social structures at the heart of competing imperial projects- British, Ottoman, Egyptian, and Italian among them. Analysis of the Italian consular and mixed court cases, and diplomatic records, in Egypt and Istanbul reveals the complexity of shifting identifications and judicial reform in two parts of the interactive and competitive plural legal regime. The rich court records show that binary relational categories fail to capture the complexity of the daily lives of the residents and courts of the late Ottoman empire. Over time and acting in their own self-interests, these actors exploited the plural legal regime. Case studies in both Egypt and Istanbul explore how identification developed as a legal form of property itself. Whereas the classical literature emphasized external state power politics, this book builds upon new work in the field that shows the interaction of external and internal power struggles throughout the region led to assorted forms of confrontation, collaboration, and negotiation in the region. It will be of interest to students, scholars, and readers of Middle East, Ottoman, and Mediterranean history. It will also appeal to anyone wanting to know more about cultural history in the nineteenth century, and the historical roots of contemporary global debates on law, migration, and identities.