Late Ottoman Society

Description

When the Ottomans commenced their modernizing reforms in the 1830s, they still ruled over a vast empire. In addition to today's Turkey, including Anatolia and Thrace, their power reached over Mesopotamia, North Africa, the Levant, the Balkans, and the Caucasus. The Sultanate was at the apex of a truly multi-ethnic society. Modernization not only brought market principles to the economy and more complex administrative controls as part of state power, but also new educational institutions as well as new ideologies. Thus new ideologies developed and nationalism emerged, which became a political reality when the Empire reached its end. This book compares the different intellectual atmospheres between the pre-republican and the republican periods and identifies the roots of republican authoritarianism in the intellectual heritage of the earlier period.

Reviews

'All of the articles in this volume are useful introductions to their respective areas of emphasis. This volume is highly recommended to students and scholars alike interested in the intellectual legacy of the late Ottoman Empire' - Kent Schull, Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Volume 40 Number 2, December 2006

'Readers concerned with these subjects should not neglect this book, for which Ozdalga is to be greatly congratulated' -Omer Turan, International Journal of Middle East Studies, November 2007

Contents

Preface Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction 1. Ottoman Sources of Kemalist Thought 2. Blueprints for a Post-Scientific Society: Late Ottoman Materialists on Science, Religion, and Art 3. Whom Did Ahmed Cevdet Represent 4. Women in Late-Ottoman Intellectual History 5. Turban and Fez: Ulema as Opposition 6. Pan-Islamism in Practice: The Rhetoric of Muslim Unity and its Uses 7. 'Kütüp ve Resail-I Mevkute': Printing and Publishing in a Multi-ethnic Society 8. Christian Community Schools during the Ottoman Reform Period 9. Levantine State Muftis - An Ottoman Legacy? 10. Albanian Students of the Mekteb-i Mülkiye: Social Networks and Trends of Thought

Author Bio

Elisabeth Özdalga is Professor of Sociology at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. Özdalga, who is also affiliated to Göteborg University in Sweden on a part-time basis, has also been the direct of The Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul. She is the editor of Sufism, Music and Society in Turkey and the Middle East (2001) and the author of The Veiling Issue (1998)

Related Subjects

1. Social & Cultural History
2. Middle Eastern Cultural Studies
3. Middle East History