A Moveable Empire

"A Moveable Empire" examines the history of the Ottoman Empire through a new lens, focusing on the migrant groups that lived within its bounds and their changing relationship to the state's central authorities. Unlike earlier studies that take an evolutionary view of tribe-state relations-casting the development of a state as a story in which nomadic tribes give way to settled populations-this book argues that mobile groups played an important role in shaping Ottoman institutions and, ultimately, the early republican structures of modern Turkey. Over much of the empire's long history, local interests influenced the development of the Ottoman state as authorities sought to enlist and accommodate the various nomadic groups in the region. In the early years of the empire, maintaining a nomadic presence, especially in frontier regions, was an important source of strength. Cooperation between the imperial center and tribal leaders provided the center with an effective way of reaching distant parts of the empire, while allowing tribal leaders to perpetuate their own authority and guarantee the tribes' survival as bearers of distinct cultures and identities. This relationship changed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as indigenous communities, tribal and otherwise, discovered new possibilities of expanding their own economic and political power by pursuing local, regional, and even global opportunities, independent of the Ottoman center. The loose, flexible relationship between the Ottoman center and migrant communities became a liability under these changing conditions and the Ottoman state took its first steps toward settling tribes and controlling migrations. Finally, in the early twentieth century, mobility took another form entirely as ethnicity-based notions of nationality led to forced migrations. Resat Kasaba's new take on Ottoman history will appeal not only to students and scholars of the region but also to those with a more general interest in empires, migration, and state-society relations. Resat Kasaba is Henry M. Jackson Professor of international studies at the University of Washington. His previous books include "The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy", "Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey", and the fourth volume in the Cambridge history of Turkey, "Turkey in the Modern World".

ISBN 0295989483   Volumes 1 ISBN13 9780295989488 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 295 Publisher University of Washington Press   Published in Washington Imprint University of Washington Press   Series title Studies in Modernity and National Identity Format Paperback   Height (mm) 224 Publication date 05 Feb 2010   Width (mm) 147 DEWEY 956.101   Spine width (mm) 15 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level Professional / Scholarly Pages 216

1		Empire, state, and people		3
2		A moveable empire		13
3		Toward settlement		53
4		Building stasis		84
5		The immovable state		123
		Notes		141
		Bibliography		169
		Index		185

"This book is a rare example of a thematic survey of seminal processes throughout the entire course of the Ottoman empire, with 'mobility' as the focus of the investigation. Just as impressive as the chronological breadth and scholarly depth of his research is Kasaba's adroitness in connecting the dots with the eye of a historically informed social scientist." -Hasan Kayali, University of California, San Diego "This case study covers the six-hundred-year span of the Ottoman Empire. It is a measured challenge to epistemological stereotypes about the Middle East and an accessible explanation for the longevity of the Ottomans. There is nothing to compete with it." -Virginia H. Aksan, professor, McMaster University

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