Ottoman Centuries

Based on micro-level research of the District of Jerusalem, this book addresses some of the most crucial questions concerning the Ottoman empire in a time of crisis and disorientation: decline and decentralization, the rise of the notable elite, the urban-rural-pastoral nexus, agrarian relations and the encroachment of European economy. At the same time it paints a vivid picture of life in an Ottoman province. By integrating court record, petitions, chronicles and even local poetry, the book recreates a historical world that, though long vanished, has left an indelible imprint on the city of Jerusalem and its surroundings.

This book combines new material from the Ottoman archives with narrative sources from the region to provide a better understanding of Ottoman administrative practices in eighteenth century Bosnia.

The European Tributary States of the Ottoman Empire is the first comprehensive overview of the empire’s relationship to its various European tributaries, Moldavia, Wallachia, Transylvania, Ragusa, the Crimean Khanate and the Cossack Hetmanate. The volume focuses on three fundamental aspects of the empire’s relationship with these polities: the various legal frameworks which determined their positions within the imperial system, the diplomatic contacts through which they sought to influence the imperial center, and the military cooperation between them and the Porte. Bringing together studies by eminent experts and presenting results of several less-known historiographical traditions, this volume contributes significantly to a deeper understanding of Ottoman power at the peripheries of the empire.

A new approach to late Ottoman visual culture and its place in the world With its idiosyncratic yet unmistakable adaptation of European Baroque models, the eighteenth-century architecture of Istanbul has frequently been dismissed by modern observers as inauthentic and derivative, a view reflecting broader unease with notions of Western influence on Islamic cultures. In Ottoman Baroque—the first English-language book on the topic—Ünver Rüstem provides a compelling reassessment of this building style and shows how between 1740 and 1800 the Ottomans consciously coopted European forms to craft a new, politically charged, and globally resonant image for their empire’s capital. Rüstem reclaims the label “Ottoman Baroque” as a productive framework for exploring the connectedness of Istanbul’s eighteenth-century buildings to other traditions of the period. Using a wealth of primary sources, he demonstrates that this architecture was in its own day lauded by Ottomans and foreigners alike for its fresh, cosmopolitan effect. Purposefully and creatively assimilated, the style’s cross-cultural borrowings were combined with Byzantine references that asserted the Ottomans’ entitlement to the Classical artistic heritage of Europe. Such aesthetic rebranding was part of a larger endeavor to reaffirm the empire’s power at a time of intensified East-West contact, taking its boldest shape in a series of imperial mosques built across the city as landmarks of a state-sponsored idiom. Copiously illustrated and drawing on previously unpublished documents, Ottoman Baroque breaks new ground in our understanding of Islamic visual culture in the modern era and offers a persuasive counterpoint to Eurocentric accounts of global art history.

A painstaking study of Ottoman records, providing analyses of the economic, fiscal and demographic situation.

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.

This monograph provides a fresh insight into society, urban government and elite power in a little-studied region of the Ottoman Empire bridging Anatolia and Syria.