Dealing with the guilds of seventeenth-century Istanbul, this volume provides new information and insights into guild organization, issues of traditionalism and change, and the complex nature of the relationship between the Ottoman state and its guilds.

Crafts and Craftsmen of the Middle East presents research on craft workers within and outside the guild structure from the modern and contemporary Mediterranean world. From the late sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire to traditional style crafts in twentieth-century Turkey and Egypt, the book surveys a multitude of traditions. It begins in 1582 when Istanbul artisans paraded in front of Sultan Murad III; moves through to the eighteenth-century struggles between artisans and tax farmers in Tokat, the artisans of Cairo and the craftsmen of Adana; and into nineteenth-century accounts of Istanbul's women workers and Jewish butchers. This book is essential to all those interested in the history of the culture and society of the Islamic Mediterranean.

This book examines the city in the Ottoman Empire as a thoroughfare and destination of human migration. Drawing upon case studies from across the Middle East and Europe it provides new insights on Ottoman institutions and the structure of society.

This volume deals with the history of the "common people" in the Middle East, both villagers and urban dwellers. It investigates some of the characteristic traits of the structure and development of urban and rural society in pre-modern and modern Middle Eastern history.

Using recent approaches in economic, social, labour and institutional history, this volume analyses guilds in the period 500-1700 AD.