Originally published in 1987, this book examines the consequences of the nineteenth-century economic penetration of Europe into the Ottoman Empire. Professor Pamuk makes subtle use of a very wide range of sources encompassing the statistics of most of the European countries and Ottoman records not previously tapped for this purpose. His economic and quantitative analysis established the long-term trends of Ottoman foreign trade and European investment in the Empire. The later chapters focus on the commercialisation of agriculture and the decline as well as the resistance of handicrafts. Geographically, most of the volume focuses on the area within the 1911 borders of the Empire - Turkey, northern Greece, Greater Syria and Iraq. Professor Pamuk compares the relationship of the Ottoman Empire to the world economy with that of other parts of the non-European world and concludes that the two distinguishing features of the Ottoman case were the environment of Great Power rivalry and the ability of the government to react against European pressures.
The Ottoman Empire (1299-1923) existed at the crossroads of the East and the West. Neither the history of Western Asia, nor that of Eastern Europe, can be fully understood without knowledge of the history of the Ottoman Empire. The question is often raised of whether or not economic thinking can exist in a non-capitalistic society. In the Ottoman Empire, like in all other pre-capitalistic cultures, the economic sphere was an integral part of social life, and elements of Ottoman economic thought can frequently be found in amongst political, social and religious ideas. Ottoman economic thinking cannot, therefore, be analyzed in isolation; analysis of economic thinking can reveal aspects of the entire world view of the Ottomans. Based on extensive archival work, this landmark volume examines Ottoman economic thinking in the classical period using three concepts: humorism, circle of justice and household economy. Basing the research upon the writings of the Ottoman elite and bureaucrats, this book explores Ottoman economic thinking starting from its own dynamics, avoiding the temptation to seek modern economic theories and approaches in the Ottoman milieu.
International trade has shaped the modern world, yet until now no single book has been available for both economists and general readers that traces the history of the international economy from its earliest beginnings to the present day. Power and Plenty fills this gap, providing the first full account of world trade and development over the course of the last millennium. Ronald Findlay and Kevin O'Rourke examine the successive waves of globalization and "deglobalization" that have occurred during the past thousand years, looking closely at the technological and political causes behind these long-term trends. They show how the expansion and contraction of the world economy has been directly tied to the two-way interplay of trade and geopolitics, and how war and peace have been critical determinants of international trade over the very long run. The story they tell is sweeping in scope, one that links the emergence of the Western economies with economic and political developments throughout Eurasia centuries ago. Drawing extensively upon empirical evidence and informing their systematic analysis with insights from contemporary economic theory, Findlay and O'Rourke demonstrate the close interrelationships of trade and warfare, the mutual interdependence of the world's different regions, and the crucial role these factors have played in explaining modern economic growth. Power and Plenty is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the origins of today's international economy, the forces that continue to shape it, and the economic and political challenges confronting policymakers in the twenty-first century.
This work reframes sixteenth-century history , incorporating the Ottoman empire more thoroughly into European, Asian and world history. It analyzes the Ottoman Empires expansion eastward in the contexts of claims to universal sovereignty, Levantine power politics, and the struggle for control of the oriental trade. Challenging the notion that the sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire was merely a reactive economic entity driven by the impulse to territorial conquest, Brummett portrays it as inheritor of Euro-Asian trading networks and participant in the contest for commercial hegemony from Genoa and Venice to the Indian Ocean. Brummett shows that the development of seapower was crucial to this endeavor, enabling the Ottomans to subordinate both Venice and the Mamluk kingdom to dependency relationships and providing the Ottoman ruling class access to commercial investment and wealth.
The Ottoman Empire stood at a crossroads of intercontinental trade, stretching from the Balkans and the Black Sea region through the present day Middle East and most of the North African coast for six centuries up to World War I. The articles in this volume by a leading economic historian examine its economic institutions, the long term performance of the Ottoman economy and explore the reasons for the longevity of this large empire. They argue that the Ottoman state and society showed considerable ability to reorganize and adapt to changing circumstances and make the case that, until the 19th century, standards of living in many parts of the empire differed little from those in much of continental Europe.
The Ottoman Empire is approahced through analysis of its political economy based on world systems theory. Relations with Europe constituted one of the key factors that shaped the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Yet a comprehensive account of the nature, development, and consequences of these realtions has, until now, never been developed. This book moves beyond the narrow framework of Euro-Ottoman relations, and places Europe at the center of the expanding world economy as it examines the impact of this global system on the Ottoman Empire. Its main contention is that the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was the culmination of a long term process whereby the Ottoman territories became integral parts of the European-centered world economy, and Ottoman state a subordinate member of the interstate system. In addition to the broad processes eminating from outside, the author focuses on the transformation of the political, economic, and social structures in the Ottoman Empire. The changes in processes of production, networks of trade, and relations among various social groups are described on the basis of archival material on western Anatolia. Considering world affairs and Ottoman developments simultaneously makes this work unique in its field. This approach captures the transformation of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century in all its complexity. In addition to providing original information about western Anatolia, the books also offers a general model for combining the macro concerns of historical sociology with detailed research in social history.
Between 1453 and 1526 Muslims founded three major states in the Mediterranean, Iran and South Asia: respectively the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires. By the early seventeenth century their descendants controlled territories that encompassed much of the Muslim world, stretching from the Balkans and North Africa to the Bay of Bengal and including a combined population of between 130 and 160 million people. This book is the first comparative study of the politics, religion, and culture of these three empires between 1300 and 1923. At the heart of the analysis is Islam, and how it impacted on the political and military structures, the economy, language, literature and religious traditions of these great empires. This original and sophisticated study provides an antidote to the modern view of Muslim societies by illustrating the complexity, humanity and vitality of these empires, empires that cannot be reduced simply to religious doctrine.
A Moveable Empire examines the history of the Ottoman Empire through a new lens, focusing on the migrant groups that lived within its bounds and their changing relationship to the state's central authorities. Unlike earlier studies that take an evolutionary view of tribe-state relations -- casting the development of a state as a story in which nomadic tribes give way to settled populations -- this book argues that mobile groups played an important role in shaping Ottoman institutions and, ultimately, the early republican structures of modern Turkey. Over much of the empire's long history, local interests influenced the development of the Ottoman state as authorities sought to enlist and accommodate the various nomadic groups in the region. In the early years of the empire, maintaining a nomadic presence, especially in frontier regions, was an important source of strength. Cooperation between the imperial center and tribal leaders provided the center with an effective way of reaching distant parts of the empire, while allowing tribal leaders to perpetuate their own authority and guarantee the tribes' survival as bearers of distinct cultures and identities. This relationship changed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as indigenous communities discovered new possibilities for expanding their own economic and political power by pursuing local, regional, and even global opportunities, independent of the Ottoman center. The loose, flexible relationship between the Ottoman center and migrant communities became a liability under these changing conditions, and the Ottoman state took its first steps toward settling tribes and controlling migrations. Finally, in the early twentieth century, mobility took another form entirely as ethnicity-based notions of nationality led to forced migrations.