By the early twentieth century, there were close to two hundred American missionaries working in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. They came in droves as early as 1830, organizing hundreds of schools, hospitals, printing presses, and seminaries. Until now, the missionaries' sources and perspectives have dominated discussions of this moment in history, but the experiences of the Ottoman authorities are just as, if not more, revealing of an increasingly tense relationship between Christianity and Islam. An enthralling narrative of how locals made sense of American religious activity in the Ottoman Empire, Faithful Encounters examines the relationships between the authorities who managed the empire from the capital city of Istanbul, provincial agents who carried out the capital's orders, and the missionaries who engaged with them. Exploring a wide range of untapped sources – from imperial ministries, security forces, and local petitions to international reports and missionary collections – Emrah Sahin traces the interactions of the Ottoman authorities, focusing on the viewpoints and manoeuvres they adopted to monitor and conquer the missionary presence at a time of turbulent public and political upheaval. Offering a comparative context from which to reconsider recent cultural relations in the region, Faithful Encounters is not only a history of Christian and Muslim relations. It is a lesson about a failing mission in a failing empire, with stunning relevance to the looming religious and ethnic crises of today.

The astronomer Jan Hendrik Oort (1900-1992) left behind an extensive collection of notes and correspondence, both on his research and on matters that concerned him in a variety of official functions. Upon Oort's death, the collection was augmented by more personal papers, letters, journals, and diaries. The resulting collection forms a rich source of information on many aspects of twentieth-century astronomy, in which Oort played such an important role. The scientific and personal material covers the entire span of time from Oort's early youth until his death. To make these papers accessible to a wide circle of users, the collection has now been catalogued and described; the result is presented in this volume. A name index and a subject index have been added to facilitate access. The inventory is accompanied by a short biographical sketch, and a number of photographs, mostly relating to Oort's career as a scientist. The original papers themselves are archived in the Leiden University Library.