Ottoman Culture and the Project of Modernity
Central to the nineteenth-century Ottoman Tanzimat reform project, the novel originally developed outside of Ottoman space, yet was adopted as a didactic tool to model and generate new forms of Ottoman citizenship. Essays in this book explore the appropriation of the novel as a literary genre and its deployment in the late Ottoman cultural project of constructing an Ottoman modernity. Analyzing key texts and authors, from the works of Ahmet Midhat Efendi to Mizanci Murad and Vartan Pasha, amon...
Landed Internationals examines the international culture of postwar urban planning through the case of the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, Turkey. Today the center of Turkey's tech, energy, and defense elites, METU was founded in the 1950s through an effort jointly sponsored by the UN, the University of Pennsylvania, and various governmental agencies of the United States and Turkey. Drawing on the language of the UN and its Technical Assistance Board, Erdim uses the phrase "te...
This edited volume, comprising chapters by leading academics and experts, aims to clarify the complexity of Turkey's Kurdish question. The Kurdish question is a long-standing, protracted issue, which gained regional and international significance largely in the last thirty years. The Kurdish people who represent the largest ethnic minority in the Middle East without a state have demanded autonomy and recognition since the post-World I wave of self-governance in the region, and their nationalist...
Turkestan and the Rise of Eurasian Empires
by Associate Professor of History Ali Anooshahr
Turkey's process of `modernization' developed rapidly during the second half of the twentieth century. New social and legal reforms were institutionalized and political and economic changes located the country as a more liberated, `Western-style' society. Women and Public Space in Turkey provides a historical understanding of women's experiences of this modernization between 1950 and 1980, a vital period in which their participation in urban public life expanded through higher education and empl...
Entangled Education (Beiruter Texte und Studien (BTS), #137) (Beiruter Texte Und Studien, #137)
Late Ottoman Bilad al-Sham and Mandate Lebanon were characterized by an exceptionally dense concentration of diverse educational institutions. Research on education in this region during the late 19th and early 20th centuries has hitherto focused on individual institutions or movements. This volume challenges the established narrative and emphasizes the entanglements of individuals, concepts, and practices. Stemming from an international workshop held at the Orient-Institut Beirut in April 2012,...
Architecture and urban planning have always been used by political regimes to stamp their ideologies upon cities, and this is especially the case in the modern Turkish Republic. By exploring Istanbul's modern architectural and urban history, Murat Gul highlights the dynamics of political and social change in Turkey from the late-Ottoman period until today. Looking beyond pure architectural styles or the physical manifestations of Istanbul's cultural landscape, he offers critical insight into how...
In October 1945 at the age of 19, John Freely passed the southernmost tip of Crete on his way home from the war in China, just as Odysseus did on his homeward voyage from the battle of Troy. He has been bewitched by Homer and the lands of Homer's epics ever since. As the culmination of a life spent exploring both these lands and the stories by, and connected to, Homer, Freely has created a captivating traveller's guide to Homer's lost world and to his epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, investiga...
Osmanli Imparatorlugu'nda Ermenilere Yapilan Muamele, 1915-1916
by James Bryce and Arnold Joseph Toynbee
Bertrandon de la Broquiere was esquire to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. Philip had plans for a new Crusade to the Holy Land and as part of this plan he persuaded Bertrandon to undertake a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to gather intelligence. Bertrandon set off in 1432 disguised as a pilgrim but acting as a spy for Philip, noting important details of the military, political and cultural aspects of Mamluk and Ottoman lands. The resulting account of his travels, translated into English by Thomas...
A History of Servia, and the Servian Revolution (Cambridge Library Collection - European History)
by Leopold Von Ranke
The German historian Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886) is considered a founder of modern source-based history, introducing ideas such as reliance on primary sources, emphasis on narrative history and international perspectives. (His works on the history of England and the on papacy are also reissued in this series.) While historiography and empiricism, as practised by Ranke, are now considered outdated, his emphasis on primary sources and the use of quotations to illustrate arguments remains hugely...
The German contribution in a famous Turkish victory at Gallipoli has been overshadowed by the Mustafa Kemal legend. The commanding presence of German General Liman von Sanders in the operations is well known. But relatively little is known about the background of German military intervention in Ottoman affairs. Klaus Wolf fills this gap as a result of extensive research in the German records and the published literature. He examines the military assistance offered by the German Empire in the ye...
Just a few short years ago, the Turkish Model was being hailed across the world. The New York Times gushed that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) had "effectively integrated Islam, democracy, and vibrant economics," making Turkey, according to the International Crisis Group, "the envy of the Arab world." And yet, a more recent CNN headline wondered if Erdogan had become a dictator. In this incisive analysis, Cihan Tugal argues that this development r...
The campaigns fought by the Ottomans against the British in Palestine are often neglected in accounts of the Great War, yet they are fascinating from the point of view of military history and critically important because of their impact upon the modern Middle East. Edward Erickson's authoritative and absorbing account of the four-year struggle for control of Palestine between 1914 and 1918 of the battles fought for Suez, Sinai, Gaza, Jordan and Syria opens up this little-understood aspect of the...
Mihri Hatun (Gender, Culture, and Politics in the Middle East)
by Didem Havlioglu
The early modern Ottoman poet Mihri Hatun (1460-1515) succeeded in drawing an admiring audience and considerable renown during a time when few women were accepted into the male-dominated intellectual circles. Her poetry collection is among the earliest bodies of women's writing in the Middle East and Islamicate literature, providing an exceptional vantage point on intellectual history. With this volume, Havliog?lu not only gives readers access to this rare text but also investigates the factors...
Istanbul (New Directions in International Studies)
Istanbul explores how to live with difference through the prism of an age-old, cutting-edge city whose people have long confronted the challenge of sharing space with the Other. Located at the intersection of trade networks connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa, Istanbul is western and eastern, northern and southern, religious and secular. Heir of ancient empires, Istanbul is the premier city of a proud nation-state even as it has become a global city of multinational corporations, NGOs, and capit...
Ever since he was a young boy, Brian Sewell has had a fascination with Turkey and over the years he has travelled there often. In this title he interweaves autobiographical observations with his captivation for the Aegean splendour of his favourite nation. Originally published in 1988 in a mutilated edition, he has now reshaped this travelbook.