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Drawing on William Dawes' unpublished notebooks on the Indigenous languages spoken around Sydney Cove at the time of white settlement, this article hopes to provoke critical reflection on the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

The origins and spread of Christianity

Roman morality and political harmony were at their height, wrote Sallust, between the Second and Third Punic Wars. After this came the evils that accompany prosperity – strife, greed, ambition and the pursuit of ascendancy by powerful men. The inadequacies of this kind of explanation and of the precise dividing line drawn here by Sallust were discussed in chapter 1 (pp. 7–9). In spite of this there is no doubt that the razing of Carthage introduced an era of political crisis, whose antagonisms recalled the dimly remembered struggles of the early Republic and brought into question the stability of the constitution which Polybius admired. Polybius thought that the common people were wronged through the greed of some men and given a false sense of importance through the ambitions of others. These exploited the truculence and recklessness of the poor in order to dominate the constitution and created what was in name democracy but was in fact mob-rule. Modern scholars are in general reluctant to recognize so dramatic a change, at least in Polybius' lifetime. The present writer has argued in an earlier book that the violence of the late Republic should not be regarded as the result of a sudden reversal of Roman values but the re-emergence of long-standing attitudes and conflicts, which had been temporarily suppressed by political prudence and the profits from success abroad. On the other hand, it is not excessively superficial to look to the personalities of men like the Gracchi and see in their imagination and resolve the initial moment of a new political process.

Political history, 146–95 b.c.

The battle of Bovillae on 18th January, 52 B.C., which led to Clodius' death, was literally treated by Cicero in a letter to Atticus as the beginning of a new era—he dated the letter by it, although over a year had elapsed. It is difficult to exaggerate the relief it afforded him from fear and humiliation for a few precious years before civil war put him once more in jeopardy. At one stroke Cicero lost his chief inimicus and the Republic lost a hostis and pestis. Moreover, the turmoil led to a political realignment for which Cicero had been striving for the last ten years—a reconciliation between the boni and Pompey, as a result of which Pompey was commissioned to put the state to rights. Cicero's behaviour in this context, especially his return to the centre of the political scene, is, one would have thought, of capital importance to the biographer of Cicero. Yet two recent English biographies have but briefly touched on the topic. It is true that, in the background of Cicero's personal drama, Caesar and Pompey were taking up positions which, as events turned out, would lead to the collapse of the Republic. However, Cicero and Milo were not to know this, nor were their opponents; friendly cooperation between the two super-politicians apparently was continuing. Politicians on all sides were still aiming to secure power and honour through the traditional Republican magistracies, and in this pursuit were prepared to use the odd mixture of violence, bribery and insistence on the strict letter of the constitution, which was becoming a popular recipe. In retrospect their obsession with the customary organs of power has a certain irony. Yet it is a testimony to the political atmosphere then. Their manoeuvres are also important because both the instability caused by the violence of Clodius and Milo, and the eventual confidence in the rule of law established under Pompey's protection, helped to determine the political position of the boni associated with Pompey in 49 B.C. Cicero's relationship with Milo is at first sight one of the more puzzling aspects of his career. What had they in common, except that Milo, like most late Republican politicians, was at one time associated with Pompey? Properly interpreted, however, this relationship may not only illuminate Cicero's own attitudes but illustrate the character of the last years of Republican politics.

Cicero and Milo

List of illustrations Preface Abbreviations Bibliography Part I. Background: 1. Introduction 2. The lex repetundarum 3. The lex agraria 4. The laws as texts 5. The discovery, transmission and early publications of the fragments Part II. The Texts: I Lex Repetundarum Introduction to the text Text and translation Commentary II Lex Agraria Introduction to the text Text and translation Commentary Index.

Judicial reform and land reform in the Roman Republic

Traditionally, foreign affairs come first in histories of the middle Republic, domestic politics in those of the late Republic. Yet, although developments in Rome and Italy came to overshadow all else in the fifty years after the destruction of Carthage, it is wrong to write as if the Romans, as it were, changed trains in 146 b.c. In fact Rome's expansion abroad, because of the power and wealth it created for both the res publica and individuals and because of the accompanying problems, continued to be the main stimulus for political changes. Polybius claimed in passages probably written between 167 and 146 that the Romans had become masters of the world with which his history dealt. This did not mean that they administered the whole area or even that they were interested in what was happening in every part, but that ultimately they expected their will to be obeyed in matters affecting their interests here. It was a hegemony that even after 146 was looser than those of the great Hellenistic powers had been in their smaller spheres of influence, but as stern or sterner when Roman power was concentrated on a particular trouble spot. The methods by which this hegemony was exercised have been discussed in the previous volume. There was fighting almost every year in one part of the Mediterranean or another, but more often than not the Romans exerted power without direct recourse to arms. In the territories administered by Rome in the West the focus was the Roman magistrate or pro-magistrate in whose province the territory was.

Andrew Lintott

Papers

The origins and spread of Christianity

Political history, 146–95 b.c.

Cicero and Milo

Judicial reform and land reform in the Roman Republic

The Roman empire and its problems in the late second century