The collapse of the Ottoman Empire is a key event in the shaping of our own times. From its ruins rose a whole map of new countries including Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the perennially troubled area of Palestine as well as the Balkan lands - states which were to remain flashpoints of international tension. This thoughtful and lucid volume considers the reasons for the end of the Ottoman Empire; explains the course of it; and examines the aftermath.
The collapse of the Ottoman Empire was by no means a singular event. After six hundred years of ruling over the peoples of North Africa, the Balkans and Middle East, the death throes of sultanate encompassed a series of wars, insurrections, and revolutions spanning the early twentieth century.This volume encompasses a full accounting of the political, economic, social, and international forces that brought about the passing of the Ottoman state. In surveying the many tragedies that transpired in the years between 1908 and 1922, Fall of the Sultanate explores the causes that eventuallyled so many to view the legacy of the Ottomans with loathing and resentment.The volume provides a retelling of this critical history as seen through the eyes of those who lived through the Ottoman collapse. Drawing upon a large gamut of sources in multiple languages, Ryan Gingeras strikes a critical balance in presenting and interpreting the most impactful experiences thatshaped the lives of the empire's last generation. The story presented here takes into account the perspectives of the empire's diverse population as well as the leaders who piloted the state to its end. In surveying the personal, communal and national struggles that defined Italy's invasion ofLibya, the Balkan War, the Great War, and the Turkish War of Independence, Fall of the Sultanate presents readers with a fresh and comprehensive exposition of how and why Ottoman imperial rule ended in bloodshed and disillusionment.
With the end of the First World War, the centuries-old social fabric of the Ottoman world an entangled space of religious co-existence throughout the Balkans and the Middle East came to its definitive end. In this new study, Hans-Lukas Kieser argues that while the Ottoman Empire officially ended in 1922, when the Turkish nationalists in Ankara abolished the Sultanate, the essence of its imperial character was destroyed in 1915 when the Young Turk regime eradicated the Armenians from Asia Minor. This book analyses the dynamics and processes that led to genocide and left behind today s crisis-ridden post-Ottoman Middle East. Going beyond Istanbul, the book also studies three different but entangled late Ottoman areas: Palestine, the largely Kurdo-Armenian eastern provinces and the Aegean shores; all of which were confronted with new claims from national movements that questioned the Ottoman state. All would remain regions of conflict up to the present day.Using new primary material, World War I and the End of the Ottoman World brings together analysis of the key forces which undermined an empire, and marks an important new contribution to the study of the Ottoman world and the Middle East. "
One hundred years after the deportations and mass murder of Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, and other peoples in the final years of the Ottoman Empire, the history of the Armenian genocide is a victim of historical distortion, state-sponsored falsification, and deep divisions between Armenians and Turks. Working together for the first time, Turkish, Armenian, and other scholars present here a compelling reconstruction of what happened and why. This volume gathers the most up-to-date scholarship on Armenian genocide, looking at how the event has been written about in Western and Turkish historiographies; what was happening on the eve of the catastrophe; portraits of the perpetrators; detailed accounts of the massacres; how the event has been perceived in both local and international contexts, including World War I; and reflections on the broader implications of what happened then. The result is a comprehensive work that moves beyond nationalist master narratives and offers a more complete understanding of this tragic event.
In the early part of the twentieth century, as Europe began its descent into the First World War, the Ottoman world – once the largest Empire in the Middle East – began to experience a revolution which would culminate in the new, secular Turkish state. Alongside this, in 1915, as part of an increasing nationalism, it enacted a genocide against its Armenian citizens. In this new study, Hans-Lukas Kieser marshals a dazzling array of scholars to re-evaluate the approach and legacy of the Young Turks – whose eradication of the Armenians from Asia Minor would have far-reaching consequences. Kieser argues that genocide led to today's crisis-ridden Middle East and set in place a rigid state system whose effects are still felt in Turkey today.Featuring new and groundbreaking work on the role of bureaucracy, the actors outside of Istanbul and re-centreing Armenian agency in the genocide, The End of the Ottomans is a vital new study of the Ottoman world, the Armenian Genocide and of the Middle East.
The Turkish Republic was formed out of immense bloodshed and carnage. During the decade leading up to the end of the Ottoman Empire and the ascendancy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, virtually every town and village throughout Anatolia was wracked by intercommunal violence. Sorrowful Shores presents a unique, on-the-ground history of these bloody years of social and political transformation. Challenging the determinism associated with nationalist interpretations of Turkish history between 1912 and 1923, Ryan Gingeras delves deeper into this period of transition between empire and nation-state. Looking closely at a corner of territory immediately south of the old Ottoman capital of Istanbul, he traces the evolution of various communities of native Christians and immigrant Muslims against the backdrop of the Balkan Wars, the First World War, the Armenian Genocide, the Turkish War of Independence, and the Greek occupation of the region. Drawing on new sources from the Ottoman archives, Gingeras demonstrates how violence was organised at the local level. Arguing against the prevailing view of the conflict as a war between monolithic ethnic groups driven by fanaticism and ancient hatreds, he reveals instead the culpability of several competing states in fanning successive waves of bloodshed.
"Don't blame the victim" is a cornerstone maxim of Anglo-American jurisprudence, but should the law generally ignore a victim's behavior in determining a defendant's liability? Victims' Rights and Victims' Wrongs criticizes the current criminal law approach and outlines a more fair, coherent, and efficient set of rules to recognize that victims sometimes co-author their own losses or injuries. Evaluating a number of controversial cases involving euthanasia, sadomasochism, date rape, battered wives, and "innocent" aggressors, Vera Bergelson builds a theoretical foundation for reform. Her approach to comparative criminal liability takes into account the actions of both the perpetrator and the victim and offers a unitary explanation for consent, self-defense, and provocation. This innovative book supplies a practical and coherent mechanism for evaluating the impact of a victim's conduct on a perpetrator's liability in a variety of circumstances, including those that are now artificially excluded from comparative analysis.
"A remarkably readable, judicious and well-researched account" (Financial Times) of World War I in the Middle East By 1914 the powers of Europe were sliding inexorably toward war, and they pulled the Middle East along with them into one of the most destructive conflicts in human history. In The Fall of the Ottomans, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan brings the First World War and its immediate aftermath in the Middle East to vivid life, uncovering the often ignored story of the region's crucial role in the conflict. Unlike the static killing fields of the Western Front, the war in the Middle East was fast-moving and unpredictable, with the Turks inflicting decisive defeats on the Entente in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and Gaza before the tide of battle turned in the Allies' favor. The postwar settlement led to the partition of Ottoman lands, laying the groundwork for the ongoing conflicts that continue to plague the modern Arab world. A sweeping narrative of battles and political intrigue from Gallipoli to Arabia, The Fall of the Ottomans is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the Great War and the making of the modern Middle East.
Like England's Charles II, the Ottoman Empire took "an unconscionable time dying." Since the seventeenth century, observers had been predicting the collapse of this so-called Sick Man of Europe, yet it survived all its rivals. As late as 1910, the Ottoman Empire straddled three continents. Unlike the Romanovs, Habsburgs, or Hohenzollerns, the House of Osman, which had allied itself with the Kaiser, was still recognized as an imperial dynasty during the peace conference following World War I. "The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire" offers a provocative view of the empire's decline, from the failure to take Vienna in 1683 to the abolition of the Sultanate by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) in 1922 during a revolutionary upsurge in Turkish national pride. The narrative contains instances of violent revolt and bloody reprisals, such as the massacres of Armenians in 1896, and other "ethnic episodes" in Crete and Macedonia. More generally, it emphasizes recurring problems: competition between religious and secular authority; the acceptance or rejection of Western ideas; and the strength or weakness of successive Sultans. The book also highlights the special challenges of the early twentieth century, when railways and oilfields gave new importance to Ottoman lands in the Middle East. Events of the past few years have placed the problems that faced the last Sultans back on the world agenda. The old empire's outposts in the Balkans and in Iraq are still considered trouble spots. Alan Palmer offers considerable insight into the historical roots of many contemporary problems: the Kurdish struggle for survival, the sad continuity of conflict in Lebanon, and the centuries-old Muslim presence in Sarajevo. He also recounts the Ottoman Empire's lingering interests in their oil-rich Libyan provinces. By exploring that legacy over the past three centuries, "The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire" examines a past whose effect on the present may go a long way toward explaining the future. Praise for "The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire" "Alan Palmer writes the sort of history that dons did before 'accessible' became an academic insult. It is cool, rational, scholarly, literate."--John Keegan "A scholarly, readable and balanced history."--"The Independent on Sunday" "A marvellously readable book based on massive research."--Robert Blake
Ottoman Empire A startling reality burst Osman's dream of a sole enduring promise land. The pious, Sufi mystics, beys, emirs and tribes on Anatolia's frontiers chased the Ottoman vision. Sultans would rise and build multicultural millets and stir the soul of caliphs. Drawn to the allure of the Orient Express, coffee and velvet, the burst didn't happen over night. Merchants, nobility and guilded artisans built markets and trade routes. Risking their lives, Ottomans crossed the pirate-riddled Adriatic. Sultans and gazis embraced the crescent's rise. Inside you will read about... - Origins until the Balkan Conquests- Institutions & Society: Millets, Guilds, Trade, Religion and Mysticism- Fifteenth Century Imperial Style, Sixteenth Century Golden Age, Cracks before World War I- The Eastern QuestionAnd much more!.Western industrialization and the Enlightenment gripped hearts and minds as starry-eyed Ottoman astronomers and society embraced a Golden Age. Yet with any rise comes the reality that Sir Lawrence of Arabia and the Berlin-Baghdad Express alliances could only foreshadow. Designs on the lands turned the empire into the Eastern Question during World War I in a prelude to today's Middle East.
