Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul

Guild Dynamics in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul
Author: Eunjeong Yi
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN: 9789004129443

Dealing with the guilds of seventeenth-century Istanbul, this volume provides new information and insights into guild organization, issues of traditionalism and change, and the complex nature of the relationship between the Ottoman state and its guilds.

Crime and Punishment in Istanbul

Crime and Punishment in Istanbul
Author: Fariba Zarinebaf
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2011-01-10
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520947568

This vividly detailed revisionist history exposes the underworld of the largest metropolis of the early modern Mediterranean and through it the entire fabric of a complex, multicultural society. Fariba Zarinebaf maps the history of crime and punishment in Istanbul over more than one hundred years, considering transgressions such as riots, prostitution, theft, and murder and at the same time tracing how the state controlled and punished its unruly population. Taking us through the city's streets, workshops, and houses, she gives voice to ordinary people—the man accused of stealing, the woman accused of prostitution, and the vagabond expelled from the city. She finds that Istanbul in this period remains mischaracterized—in part by the sensational and exotic accounts of European travelers who portrayed it as the embodiment of Ottoman decline, rife with decadence, sin, and disease. Linking the history of crime and punishment to the dramatic political, economic, and social transformations that occurred in the eighteenth century, Zarinebaf finds in fact that Istanbul had much more in common with other emerging modern cities in Europe, and even in America.

Forging Urban Solidarities

Forging Urban Solidarities
Author: Charles L. Wilkins
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004169075

As with most empires of the Early Modern period (1500-1800), the Ottomans mobilized human and material resources for warmaking on a scale that was vast and unprecedented. The present volume examines the direct and indirect effects of warmaking on Aleppo, an important Ottoman administrative center and Levantine trading city, as the empire engaged in multiple conflicts, including wars with Venice (1644-69), Poland (1672-76) and the Hapsburg Empire (1663-64, 1683-99). Focusing on urban institutions such as residential quarters, military garrisons, and guilds, and using intensively the records of local law courts, the study explores how the routinization of direct imperial taxes and the assimilation of soldiers to civilian life challenged and reshaped the city s social and political order.

The Arabic Print Revolution

The Arabic Print Revolution
Author: Ami Ayalon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2016-09-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 1316776743

In a brief historic moment, printing presses, publishing ventures, a periodical press, circulation networks, and a mass readership came into being all at once in the Middle East, where none had previously existed, with ramifications in every sphere of the community's life. Among other outcomes, this significant change facilitated the cultural and literary movement known as the Arab 'nahda' ('awakening'). Ayalon's book offers both students and scholars a critical inquiry into the formative phase of that shift in Arab societies. This comprehensive analysis explores the advent of printing and publishing; the formation of mass readership; and the creation of distribution channels, the vital and often overlooked nexus linking the former two processes. It considers questions of cultural and religious tradition, social norms and relations, and concepts of education, offering a unique presentation of the emerging print culture in the Middle East.

Biography of an Empire

Biography of an Empire
Author: Christine M. Philliou
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2011
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0520266331

This vividly detailed revisionist history opens a new vista on the great Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century, a key period often seen as the eve of Tanzimat westernizing reforms and the beginning of three distinct histories—ethnic nationalism in the Balkans, imperial modernization from Istanbul, and European colonialism in the Middle East. Christine Philliou brilliantly shines a new light on imperial crisis and change in the 1820s and 1830s by unearthing the life of one man. Stephanos Vogorides (1780–1859) was part of a network of Christian elites known phanariots, institutionally excluded from power yet intimately bound up with Ottoman governance. By tracing the contours of the wide-ranging networks—crossing ethnic, religious, and institutional boundaries—in which the phanariots moved, Philliou provides a unique view of Ottoman power and, ultimately, of the Ottoman legacies in the Middle East and Balkans today. What emerges is a wide-angled analysis of governance as a lived experience at a moment in which there was no clear blueprint for power.

Slaves and Slave Agency in the Ottoman Empire

Slaves and Slave Agency in the Ottoman Empire
Author: Stephan Conermann
Publisher: V&R Unipress
Total Pages: 449
Release: 2020-05-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 3847010379

Slaves and Slave Agency in the Ottoman Empire offers a new contribution to slavery studies relating to the Ottoman Empire. Given the fact that the classical binary of 'slavery' and 'freedom' derives from the transatlantic experience, this volume presents an alternative approach by examining the strong asymmetric relationships of dependency documented in the Ottoman Empire. A closer look at the Ottoman social order discloses manifold and ambiguous conditions involving enslavement practices, rather than a single universal pattern. The authors examine various forms of enslavement and dependency with a particular focus on agency, i. e. the room for maneuver, which the enslaved could secure for themselves, or else the available options for action in situations of extreme individual or group dependencies.

Bread from the Lion's Mouth

Bread from the Lion's Mouth
Author: Suraiya Faroqhi
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2015-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1782385592

The newly awakened interest in the lives of craftspeople in Turkey is highlighted in this collection, which uses archival documents to follow Ottoman artisans from the late 15th century to the beginning of the 20th. The authors examine historical changes in the lives of artisans, focusing on the craft organizations (or guilds) that underwent substantial changes over the centuries. The guilds transformed and eventually dissolved as they were increasingly co-opted by modernization and state-building projects, and by the movement of manufacturing to the countryside. In consequence by the 20th century, many artisans had to confront the forces of capitalism and world trade without significant protection, just as the Ottoman Empire was itself in the process of dissolution.

Slavery and Other Forms of Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies

Slavery and Other Forms of Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies
Author: Jeannine Bischoff
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2022-10-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 3110786982

In this volume, we approach the phenomenon of slavery and other types of strong asymmetrical dependencies from two methodologically and theoretically distinct perspectives: semantics and lexical fields. Detailed analyses of key terms that are associated with the conceptualization of strong asymmetrical dependencies promise to provide new insights into the self-concept and knowledge of pre-modern societies. The majority of these key terms have not been studied from a semantic or terminological perspective so far. Our understanding of lexical fields is based on an onomasiological approach – which linguistic items are used to refer to a concept? Which words are used to express a concept? This means that the concept is a semantic unit which is not directly accessible but may be manifested in different ways on the linguistic level. We are interested in single concepts such as ‘wisdom’ or ‘fear’, but also in more complex semantic units like ‘strong asymmetrical dependencies’. In our volume, we bring together and compare case studies from very different social orders and normative perspectives. Our examples range from Ancient China and Egypt over Greek and Maya societies to Early Modern Russia, the Ottoman Empire and Islamic and Roman law.

Society and Politics in an Ottoman Town

Society and Politics in an Ottoman Town
Author: Hülya Canbakal
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2006-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9047411323

This book deals with a provincial town attending to its day-to-day business against the backdrop of an exacting war fought far afield against the Habsburgs (1683-99). The dynamics of long-term economic growth were temporarily disturbed by the wartime economy while realignment in center-periphery relations affected the local power structure and practices of status management. Meanwhile, the local elite continued to dominate public life, hence the lives of commoners. This study opens a window onto this world through a close examination of the court records of the town.