This first comprehensive study on Ottoman educational reform is based on archival material and providing new information on curricular policies applied in the provinces and toward different ethnic groups.

This book is dedicated to Metin Kunt, which primarily examines diverse cases of changes throughout Ottoman history. Both specialist and non-specialist readers will explore and understand the complexities concerning the longevity as well as the tenacity of the Ottoman Empire.

In the first two decades after W.W.II, social scientist heralded Turkey as an exemplar of a 'modernizing' nation in the Western mold. Images of unveiled women working next to clean-shaven men, healthy children in school uniforms, and downtown Ankara's modern architecture all proclaimed the country's success. Although Turkey's modernization began in the late Ottoman era, the establishment of the secular nation-state by Kemal Ataturk in 1923 marked the crystallization of an explicit, elite-driven 'project of modernity' that took its inspiration exclusively from the West. The essays in this book are the first attempt to examine the Turkish experiment with modernity from a broad, interdisciplinary perspective, encompassing the fields of history, the social sciences, the humanities, architecture, and urban planning. As they examine both the Turkish project of modernity and its critics, the contributors offer a fresh, balanced understanding of dilemmas now facing not only Turkey but also many other parts of the Middle East and the world at large.

While European eclecticism is examined as a critical moment in western art history, little research has been conducted in the historicist pursuits of late Ottoman architects as they negotiated the nineteenth century’s vast inventory of styles and embarked on a revivalist/Orientalist program they identified as the ‘Ottoman Renaissance.’ Ersoy’s book examines the complex historicist discourse underlying this ‘renaissance’ through a close reading of a text conceived as the movement’s canonizing manifesto: the Usul-i Mi‘mari-i ‘Osmani.

This volume is a local history, focusing on the experiences of people and communities as they navigated and enacted institutions and transformations associated with modernization in the late Ottoman era. Focusing on the local political arena of a relatively small, predominantly rural and ordinary setting, this book examines two neighboring Western Anatolian towns: Yenişehir and İznik. Utilizing rigorous historiographical inquiry and in-depth use of archival materials, this book sketches a dynamic picture of late Ottoman imperial political belonging with the agendas and priorities of the countryside, where the majority of Ottomans lived. The monograph contributes to understanding of modernization from different local perspectives by excavating the provincial hinterland of the imperial capital. It uses a narrative technique of analyzing certain local events to address larger structures and transformations pertaining to the long 19th century in general and Ottoman history in particular. As a “micro” study, it argues for the significance of individuals’ and social groups’ agencies, strategies and conceptions of their world in the unfolding of Ottoman modernization. Offering a vivid picture of local communities and their engagements with modern political, social and judicial structures in the late Ottoman era, this book will appeal to scholars and advanced graduate students interested in comparative imperial history, Ottoman history and Middle Eastern studies.

This volume is a local history, focusing on the experiences of people and communities as they navigated and enacted institutions and transformations associated with modernization in the late Ottoman era. Focusing on the local political arena of a relatively small, predominantly rural and ordinary setting, this book examines two neighboring Western Anatolian towns: Yenişehir and İznik. Utilizing rigorous historiographical inquiry and in-depth use of archival materials, this book sketches a dynamic picture of late Ottoman imperial political belonging with the agendas and priorities of the countryside, where the majority of Ottomans lived. The monograph contributes to understanding of modernization from different local perspectives by excavating the provincial hinterland of the imperial capital. It uses a narrative technique of analyzing certain local events to address larger structures and transformations pertaining to the long 19th century in general and Ottoman history in particular. As a "micro" study, it argues for the significance of individuals' and social groups' agencies, strategies and conceptions of their world in the unfolding of Ottoman modernization. Offering a vivid picture of local communities and their engagements with modern political, social and judicial structures in the late Ottoman era, this book will appeal to scholars and advanced graduate students interested in comparative imperial history, Ottoman history and Middle Eastern studies.

At the turn of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire straddled three continents and encompassed extraordinary ethnic and cultural diversity among the millions of people living within its borders. This text provides a concise history of the late empire between 1789 and 1918, turbulent years marked by incredible social change.

Contrary to the stereotypical images of torture, narcotics and brutal sexual abuse traditionally associated with Ottoman or 'Turkish' prisons, Kent Schull argues that, during the Second Constitutional Period (1908-1918), they played a crucial role in attempts to transform the empire.

Olga Borovaya explores the emergence and expansion of print culture in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), the mother tongue of the Sephardic Jews of the Ottoman Empire, in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. She provides the first comprehensive study of the three major forms of Ladino literary production—the press, belles lettres, and theater—as a single cultural phenomenon. The product of meticulous research and innovative methodology, Modern Ladino Culture offers a new perspective on the history of the Ladino press, a novel approach to the study of belles lettres in Ladino and their relationship to their European sources, and a fine-grained critique of Sephardic plays as venues for moral education and politicization.

The nexus of urban governance and human migration was a crucial feature in the modernisation of cities in the Ottoman Empire of the nineteenth century. This book connects these two concepts to examine the Ottoman city as a destination of human migration, throwing new light on the question of conviviality and cosmopolitanism from the perspective of the legal, administrative and political frameworks within which these occur. Focusing on groups of migrants with various ethnic, regional and professional backgrounds, the book juxtaposes the trajectories of these people with attempts by local administrations and the government to control their movements and settlements. By combining a perspective from below with one that focuses on government action, the authors offer broad insights into the phenomenon of migration and city life as a whole. Chapters explore how increased migration driven by new means of transport, military expulsion and economic factors were countered by the state’s attempts to control population movements, as well as the strong internal reforms in the Ottoman world. Providing a rare comparative perspective on an area often fragmented by area studies boundaries, this book will be of great interest to students of History, Middle Eastern Studies, Balkan Studies, Urban Studies and Migration Studies.