An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914 (Hardcover)

~ Halil Inalcik (Author), Suraiya Faroqhi (Author), Bruce McGowan (Author), Donald Quataert (Author), Sevket Pamuk (Author)
Key Phrases: capitulatory guarantees, mushaa system, large estate formation, Black Sea, Middle East, Red Sea (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Enhanced by the latest archival research and a useful appendix on monetary history and profusely illustrated with maps, charts, and chronologies, this volume is the most comprehensive and concise overview of the empire's socioeconomic history in any language....With Halil Inalcik's masterful panorama of the imperial economy at its height, spanning the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Indian Ocean, no scholar who seeks to comprehend the origins of today's world--from Austria to Algeria and from Yemen to Ukraine--can still plead ignorance of its Ottoman past." Journal of Modern History

"Hardly an aspect of this highly researched work will be free of controversy. Therein lies its strength. A `must' for graduate students of Ottoman and world history, it is likely to generate much new scholarship..." The Historian

"...a valuable and useful compendium of information, analysis, and bibliographies." Canadian Journal of History

"This monumental work will long command serious study by all who seek to understand its vast subject. Not only a synthesis, this volume also presents important new analyses of important topics....this work will long serve specialists and non-specialists alike in their efforts to learn more about Ottoman economic history." Turkish Studies Association Bulletin

"For years to come, this volume will be the standard reference work on the economic and social history of the Ottoman Empire....This work will require both stamina and determination from the reader, but its rewards are not to be found elsewhere." Choice

"...the authors establish Ottoman social and economic history as a cohesive subject over six centuries and several continents." Middle-East Quarterly

"This monumental volume, edited and compiled by the doyen of Ottoman history, Halil Inalcik, presents a richly detailed account of the Ottoman social and economic world from new archival materials and the most recent studies. In four sections, each by an authority, developments in population, trade, transport, and manufacturing, land tenure, and the economy are analyzed....Certain to become the standard reference work, this book is strongly recommended for Ottoman historians, libraries, and advanced undergraduates." Robert Lembright, History

"This great encyclopedia of a book contains a summary of the life-time scholarship of four of the most distinguished historians of the Ottoman Empire....the book's stated task is to provide an overview of the economic and social history of the territories governed by a world empire that expanded, changed, and contracted during four centuries....the authors provide a great deal of new information, as well as a summary of much of their own earlier work." Journal of Interdisciplinary History

"This volume is bound to become a fixture on university library shelves and is essential for any historian working on, or interested in, the Ottoman Empire. Ten years in the making and quite ambitious in scope, it strives to cover the social and economic history of the Ottoman Empire over six centuries. That it does so successfully for the most part, is to the credit of the authors of its individual sections." Journal of Middle East Studies

"...this volume is a monumental achievement, richly deserving of the central place it will occupy in the literature....there is much that is new here, particularly in its incorporation of recent primary data from a remarkable variety of sources....It is virtually a primary source in itself....the study is of enormous value." Madeline C. Zilfi, American Historical Review

Product Description

This book provides a richly detailed account of the social and economic history of the Ottoman Empire, one of the major empires of modern times. In so doing it spans seven centuries, from the origins of the Empire around 1300 to the eve of its destruction during World War I. In four chronological sections the contributors provide the reader with valuable information on land tenure systems, population, trade and commerce and the industrial economy. This is an essential book for understanding contemporary developments in both the Middle East and the post-Soviet Balkan world.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 1066 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (January 27, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521343151
• ISBN-13: 978-0521343152
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 2.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,759,399 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars History of the Ottoman Empire in the Annales tradition, August 16, 2001

By	M. Jawad Qureshy "Jawad Qureshy" (Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This volume should become the standard work on the Ottoman Empire. It gives as complete a picture of life, commerce, diplomacy and ottoman bureaucracy as possible considering the relative unavailability of reliable sources for the empire. It brings together intra-empire, inter-continental and international trade as it changed over the centuries in this one volume, an achievement not mirrored in very many other histories of the period.

The effects of wars (lots of these),governmental efficacy, ending monopoly of the Black Sea trade, the discovery of the New World and the Atlantic routes to East Asia and India are all discussed in a manner which makes not only Ottoman history, but also the rise and flourish of the rest of the subsequent colonial states easier to understand. Rather than focus on the Sultanic whims and decrees as the major force or variable in the Ottoman Empire, this history focuses on the place of the Empire in Europe and the world, using economic analysis rather than Sultanic or harem memoirs to describe the state of the Ottoman subjects.

For the longest time the accepted viewpoint has been that histories of large tracts of land or of people are more or less approximated by court statutes. Fernand Braudel with his "The Mediteranean and the Mediteranean world in the age of Phillip II" went a long way towards changing this view, and with more studies like this, hopefully a more accurate picture of our past will emerge.

Its is amazing how relevant a study of this subject still is for understanding present/recent conflicts or hegemonistic attitudes in their entirety. I would give this book ten stars if I could.