This book is a comparative study of imperial organization and longevity that assesses Ottoman successes as well as failures against those of other empires with similar characteristics. Barkey examines the Ottoman Empire's social organization and mechanisms of rule at key moments of its history, emergence, imperial institutionalization, remodeling, and transition to nation-state, revealing how the empire managed these moments, adapted, and averted crises and what changes made it transform dramatically. The flexible techniques by which the Ottomans maintained their legitimacy, the cooperation of their diverse elites both at the center and in the provinces, as well as their control over economic and human resources were responsible for the longevity of this particular 'negotiated empire'. Her analysis illuminates topics that include imperial governance, imperial institutions, imperial diversity and multiculturalism, the manner in which dissent is handled and/or internalized, and the nature of state society negotiations.

Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective

Social status and legal privilege in the Roman Empire

Introduction Part I: 1. Who stole what? Time and space 2. Antiquity: no markets, but did they invent politics, freedom and the alphabet? 3. Feudalism: transition to capitalism or the collapse of Europe and the domination of Asia 4. Asiatic despots, in Turkey and elsewhere? Part II: 5. Science and civilization in Renaissance Europe 6. The theft of 'civilization': Elias and Absolutist Europe 7. The theft of 'capitalism': Braudel and global comparison Part III: 8. The theft of institutions, towns and universities 9. The appropriation of values: humanism, democracy and individualism 10. Stolen love: European claims to the emotions 11. Last words Bibliography.

The Theft of History

http://www.reteccp.org/biblioteca/dossier/handy.pdf

Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality and use of resources in the collapse or sustainability of societies

Drawing on William Dawes' unpublished notebooks on the Indigenous languages spoken around Sydney Cove at the time of white settlement, this article hopes to provoke critical reflection on the limits of the law Dawes' record of communication with Patyegarang documents a transaction that was both political and erotic, both about the law and in defiance of it In performances that were gestural as well as verbal, they marked out a middle ground where the laws governing both of them were placed in parentheses and new, provisional, rules of exchange improvised This article notices the existence of this middle ground, and marks its disappearance in subsequent legal discourse about the status of Indigenous people Ultimately, it offers a reflection on the laws that govern the meeting place which the middle ground underwrites That is, before public space became fixed for the legally binding discourse of politics, it was mobile and self-constituting Is this simply a myth or is it a mythopoetic mechanism for rethinking the grounding of law in Australia? If it is the latter, then the next step will be to establish a middle ground of exchange with Indigenous law-giving systems

Public Space: Its Mythopoetic Foundations and the Limits of the Law

/pdf/the-cambridge-ancient-history-eqgidem3vw.pdf

The Cambridge Ancient History

Early classical private law

In Western Europe to-day we tend to assume automatically that electoral bribery is pernicious, in that it distorts the democratic process, the selection by the people of their own representatives, by shifting whatever power lies in the generality of the electorate back into the hands of the people who seek office, so that a democratic procedure becomes in effect oligarchic. We even term bribery the presentation of attractive policies to the electorate by a person or party, which we believe will not be in the people's long-term interest or will be rapidly discarded in favour of policies which suit those in power. Such judgements may be superficial and too dependent on the presumption that without bribery elections will be free. It is arguable that in specific societies and in specific historical contexts bribery may on the contrary make elections less predictable, dissolving the existing ties by which the electorate are already bound to those seeking office, rather than reinforcing them. Alternatively, bribery may be regarded as an accepted part of the political scene, which does not materially affect the result of elections and thus the course of political history. In Roman politics it is hard to refute the suggestion that the sort of people who actually held magistracies was not seriously influenced by electoral bribery, even though on occasions this may have determined that one man rather than another should be consul or praetor.

Electoral Bribery in The Roman Republic

The imperium populi Romani was the power Romans exercised over other peoples, viewed in its widest sense. What we call the Roman empire, that is the empire viewed as a political entity, was usually conceived by the Romans in terms of people, the populus Romanus and its sodi et amid. The latter were differentiated into various categories according to their form of government and the terms of their association with Rome, but they were united in being regarded as contributors to Roman power and proper subjects for Roman concern.

What was the ‘Imperium Romanum’?*

I. READING CICERO 1. Reading Events 2. The Texts of the Speeches 3. Truth and Fiction II. READING ORATORY 4. Cicero's Forensic Baptism: The Pro Quinctio 5. More Problems of Partnership: The Pro Quinto Roscio Comoedo 6. Property and Violence: The Pro Tullio and Pro Caecina 7. The Citadel of the Allies 8. The Defence of Good Men: The Other Side of the Quaestio de Repetundis 9. Treason and Other Crimes against the Roman People III. HISTORY IN SPEECHES AND LETTERS 10. Candidature and Consulship 11. The Aftermath of the Consulship 12. The Gang of Three and Clodius 13. After the Return IV. HISTORY AND IDEAS 14. The Search for Otium 15. The Governor and the Approach of Civil War 16. The Mediator and the Partisans 17. Living with Dictatorship 18. The Ides of March and After 19. Answering the Republic's Call 20. Epilogue

Andrew Lintott

Papers

The Cambridge Ancient History

Early classical private law

Electoral Bribery in The Roman Republic

What was the ‘Imperium Romanum’?*

Cicero as Evidence: A Historian's Companion