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

The analysis of European trade policy in the nineteenth century is of particular interest. The nineteenth century saw both the flourishing of liberalism in theories of international trade, and the development of modern protectionism. This chapter centres on the movement towards free trade in the United Kingdom, and therefore covers the period from 1815 to 1846, a period which saw the establishment of British economic supremacy. The liberalism of British commercial policy continued during the years 1846-60. The two small, highly industrialized countries (Belgium and Switzerland) gradually achieved something close to a total free trade system. The chapter concerns the development of institutions for the promotion of foreign trade, and also discusses European colonial trade policies. It considers the position of the socialist and labour parties with regard to trade policy. The chapter finally deals with the trade policies of independent and semi-independent countries outside Europe.

European trade policy, 1815–1914

The study of the Ottoman state in tĥe latter part of the eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth demands a broader analytical framework than hitherto used if its transformation and the social and political history of the Middle East, the Balkans, and even North Africa, which were parts of the Ottoman State at one time or other, are to be properly evaluated and interpreted.

The Transformation of the Ottoman State, 1789-1908

Few countries have been as frequently described in terms of national character as Turkey. Even the earliest observers of the Ottoman Empire appear anxious to set their findings into some generalized formula of the Turkish ethos. The term used to refer to these attempts at national stereo-typing in the lingua franca of the Levant was Alia Turca behavior, an expression which has survived into modern Turkish.

Power, Civil Society and Culture in the Ottoman Empire

As a vehicle for the growing association of southern nationalists and Marxists, dependency theory is an important part of the history of our times, something much more than a school of academic writing. Whatever the varieties of analysis existing within this school (and there are many), a major historiographie shortcoming is common to most of its literature: having grasped the Hegelian insight that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, dependencistas exaggerate the point, making the mistake of refusing any autonomy, any specificity to the parts (southern countries) independently of their membership in the whole (the imperialist system established by the North). A better approach to the study of the place of the South in the international system is to emphasize the variety of state structures present there with their different abilities to mobilize forces internally and translate this into international rank. Southern advances are more substantial than many realize; the essay concludes that southerners should pay more attention to the real room for initiative and maneuver they have, but which dependency theory systematically overlooks. Most of the illustrative examples concern India, the Ottoman Empire, and Latin America before World War I.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0043887100018761

C. A. O. van Nieuwenhuijze

Papers

The Economic History of the Middle East, 1800-1914.