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Arab Traders in their Own Words explores for the first time the largest corpus of merchant correspondence to have survived from the Ottoman period. The mostly Christian traders of the Syrian and Egyptian provinces lived through one of the most turbulent intersections of Ottoman and European imperial history
Aleppo and its Hinterland in the Ottoman Period comprises eleven essays in English and French by leading scholars of Ottoman Syria which draw on new research in Turkish, Levantine and other archival sources. Focusing on both the city and its place in the wider region, the collection examines trade guilds and Christian settlement in Aleppo, Turkmen and Bedouin tribes in Aleppo’s interior, international trade and the establishment of an Ottoman commercial tribunal in the Tanzimat period, Aleppo and the rise of the millet system, the Belgian consular presence, Sufi networks in the province of Aleppo, the countryside of Antioch under the Egyptian occupation, and the urban revolt of 1850. With contributions from Enver Çakar, Elyse Semerdjian, Charles Wilkins, Stefan Winter, Mary Momdjian, Bruce Masters, Sylvain Cornac, Mafalda Ade, Feras Krimsti, Nicolas Jodoin, Stefan Knost.
Syrian-Kurdish Intersections in the Ottoman Period is a collection of essays on different aspects of the history of the Kurdish people in Syria under the Ottoman Empire, by specialists from Canada, Cyprus, Germany, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Syria, Turkey, and the United States. The book explores the junctures and crossings of Kurdish lives, Syrian geography in the broadest terms, and the Ottoman rule. The contributors draw on new research in Ottoman Turkish and Arabic, and a range of other archival and narrative sources to examine the history of Kurdish settlement in Syria, including Ottoman sedentarization policies, Kurdish notable families, trade, landowning, Kurdish-Bedouin relations, Kurdish-Ottoman civil servants, Sufism, and nineteenth-century state reforms. Syrian-Kurdish Intersections in the Ottoman Period traces a social, political, economic, and religious history across nearly 400 years.
The ‘Alawis, or Alawites, are a prominent religious minority in northern Syria, Lebanon, and southern Turkey, best known today for enjoying disproportionate political power in war-torn Syria. In this book, Stefan Winter offers a complete history of the community, from the birth of the ‘Alawi (Nusayri) sect in the tenth century to just after World War I, the establishment of the French mandate over Syria, and the early years of the Turkish republic. Winter draws on a wealth of Ottoman archival records and other sources to show that the ‘Alawis were not historically persecuted as is often claimed, but rather were a fundamental part of Syrian and Turkish provincial society. Winter argues ...
The Shiites of Lebanon under Ottoman Rule provides an original perspective on the history of the Shiites as a constituent of Lebanese society. Winter presents a history of the community before the 19th century, based primarily on Ottoman Turkish documents. From these, he examines how local Shiites were well integrated in the Ottoman system of rule, and that Lebanon as an autonomous entity only developed in the course of the 18th century through the marginalization and then violent elimination of the indigenous Shiite leaderships by an increasingly powerful Druze-Maronite emirate. As such the book recovers the Ottoman-era history of a group which has always been neglected in chronicle-based works, and in doing so, fundamentally calls into question the historic place within 'Lebanon' of what has today become the country's largest and most activist sectarian community.
In the late nineteenth century, the Ottoman government sought to fill landscapes they legally defined as "empty." Both land and people were incorporated into territorially bounded grids of administrative law. Bedouin Bureaucrats examines how tent-dwelling, seasonally migrating Bedouin engaged in these processes of Ottoman state transformation on local, imperial, and global scales. As the "tribe" became a category of Ottoman administration, Bedouin in the Syrian interior used this category both to gain political influence and to organize community resistance to maintain control over land. Narrating the lives of Bedouin individuals involved in Ottoman administration, Nora Elizabeth Barakat bri...
Taking a new approach to the study of cross-cultural trade, this book blends archival research with historical narrative and economic analysis to understand how the Sephardic Jews of Livorno, Tuscany, traded in regions near and far in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Francesca Trivellato tests assumptions about ethnic and religious trading diasporas and networks of exchange and trust. Her extensive research in international archives--including a vast cache of merchants' letters written between 1704 and 1746--reveals a more nuanced view of the business relations between Jews and non-Jews across the Mediterranean, Atlantic Europe, and the Indian Ocean than ever before. The book argues that cross-cultural trade was predicated on and generated familiarity among strangers, but could coexist easily with religious prejudice. It analyzes instances in which business cooperation among coreligionists and between strangers relied on language, customary norms, and social networks more than the progressive rise of state and legal institutions.
In this insightful volume, a range of scholars from different backgrounds and disciplines delves into the intricate world of Levantine Studies, unraveling the multifaceted history, identities, and communities that have shaped the region. Spanning the long nineteenth century until the present day, this collection offers a fresh and nuanced perspective on the Levant, challenging traditional paradigms and shedding light on previously unexplored aspects of Levantine life. Through their meticulous research and compelling narratives, the authors explore the hidden histories of marginalized populations, examine the formation of communal ties beyond conventional affiliations, and shed light on the d...
Historical disaster research is still a young field. This book discusses the experiences of natural disasters in different cultures, from Europe across the Near East to Asia. It focuses on the pre-industrial era and on the question of similarities, differences and transcultural dynamics in the cultural handling of natural disasters. Which long-lasting cultural patterns of perception, interpretation and handling of disasters can be determined? Have specific types of disasters changed the affected societies? What have people learned from disasters and what not? What adaptation and coping strategies existed? Which natural, societal and economic parameters play a part? The book not only reveals the historical depth of present practices, but also reveals possible comparisons that show globalization processes, entanglements and exchanges of ideas and practices in pre-modern times.
A selection of essays examining the significance of what Jewish history and Mediterranean studies contribute to our knowledge of the other. Jews and the Mediterranean considers the historical potency and uniqueness of what happens when Sephardi, Mizrahi, and Ashkenazi Jews meet in the Mediterranean region. By focusing on the specificity of the Jewish experience, the essays gathered in this volume emphasize human agency and culture over the length of Mediterranean history. This collection draws attention to what made Jewish people distinctive and warns against facile notions of Mediterranean connectivity, diversity, fluidity, and hybridity, presenting a new assessment of the Jewish experience in the Mediterranean.