Writing The Ottomans

Histories of the Turks were a central means through which English authors engaged in intellectual and cultural terms with the Ottoman Empire, its advance into Europe following the capture of Constantinople (1454), and its continuing central European power up to the treaty of Karlowitz (1699). Writing the Ottomans examines historical writing on the Turks in England from 1480-1700. It explores the evolution of this discourse from its continental roots, and its development in response to moments of military crisis such as the Long War of 1593-1606 and the War of the Holy League 1683-1699, as well as Anglo-Ottoman trade and diplomacy throughout the seventeenth century. From the writing of central authors such as Richard Knolles and Paul Rycaut, to lesser known names, it reads English histories of the Turks in their intellectual, religious, political, economic and print contexts, and analyses their influence on English perceptions of the Ottoman world.

This major new history of the Ottoman dynasty reveals a diverse empire that straddled East and West. The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic, Asian antithesis of the Christian, European West. But the reality was starkly different: the Ottomans’ multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious domain reached deep into Europe’s heart. Indeed, the Ottoman rulers saw themselves as the new Romans. Recounting the Ottomans’ remarkable rise from a frontier principality to a world empire, historian Marc David Baer traces their debts to their Turkish, Mongolian, Islamic, and Byzantine heritage. The Ottomans pioneered religious toleration even as they used religious conversion to integrate conquered peoples. But in the nineteenth century, they embraced exclusivity, leading to ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the empire’s demise after the First World War. The Ottomans vividly reveals the dynasty’s full history and its enduring impact on Europe and the world.

Ottoman historical writing of the 15th and 16th centuries played a significant role in fashioning Ottoman identity and institutionalizing the dynastic state structure during this period of rapid imperial expansion. This volume shows how the writing of history achieved these effects by examining the implicit messages conveyed by the texts and illustrations of key manuscripts. It answers such questions as how the Ottomans understood themselves within their court and in relation to non-Ottoman others; how they visualized the ideal ruler; how they defined their culture and place in the world; and what the significance of Islam was in their self-definition.

Looking East examines how English encounters with the Ottoman Empire helped shape national identities and imperial ambitions. Engagingly written in an accessible style, this book demonstrates how the so-called 'conflict of civilizations' separating the Muslim East from the Christian West is a false and dangerous myth.

Writing the Ottomans examines historical writing on the Turks in England from 1480-1700, tracing the evolution of this discourse and exploring its central authors, works, and contexts.

This skillfully written text presents the full sweep of Ottoman history from its beginnings on the Byzantine frontier in about 1300, through its development as an empire, to its late eighteenth-century confrontation with a rapidly modernizing Europe. Itzkowitz delineates the fundamental institutions of the Ottoman state, the major divisions within the society, and the basic ideas on government and social structure. Throughout, Itzkowitz emphasizes the Ottomans' own conception of their historical experience, and in so doing penetrates the surface view provided by the insights of Western observers of the Ottoman world to the core of Ottoman existence.

Histories of the Turks were a central means through which English authors engaged in intellectual and cultural terms with the Ottoman Empire, its advance into Europe following the capture of Constantinople (1454), and its continuing central European power up to the treaty of Karlowitz (1699). Writing the Ottomans examines historical writing on the Turks in England from 1480-1700. It explores the evolution of this discourse from its continental roots, and its development in response to moments of military crisis such as the Long War of 1593-1606 and the War of the Holy League 1683-1699, as well as Anglo-Ottoman trade and diplomacy throughout the seventeenth century. From the writing of central authors such as Richard Knolles and Paul Rycaut, to lesser known names, it reads English histories of the Turks in their intellectual, religious, political, economic and print contexts, and analyses their influence on English perceptions of the Ottoman world.