Ottoman naval technology underwent a transformation under the rule of Sultan Selim III. New types of sailing warships such as two- and three-decked galleons, frigates and corvettes began to dominate the Ottoman fleet, rendering the galley-type oared ships obsolete. This period saw technological innovations such as the adoption of the systematic copper sheathing of the hulls and bottoms of Ottoman warships from 1792-93 onwards and the construction of the first dry dock in the Golden Horn. The changing face of the Ottoman Navy was facilitated by the influence of the British, Swedish and French in modernising both the shipbuilding sector and the conduct of naval warfare. Through such measures as training Ottoman shipbuilders, heavy reliance on help from foreign powers gave way to a new trajectory of modernization. Using this evidence Zorlu argues that although the Ottoman Empire was a major and modern independent power in this period, some technological dependence on Europe remained.

In Islamic law the world was made up of the 'House of Islam' and the 'House of War' with the Ottoman Sultan - successor to the early Caliphs - as supreme ruler of the Islamic world. However, in this ground-breaking study of the Ottoman Empire in the early modern period, Suraiya Faroqhi demonstrates that there was no 'iron curtain' between the Ottoman and 'other' worlds but rather a long-established network of connections - diplomatic, trading and financial., cultural and religious. These extended beyond regional contacts to the empires of Asia and the burgeoning 'modern' states of Europe - England, France, the Netherlands and Venice. Of course, military conflict was a constant factor in these relationships, but the overriding reality was 'one world' and contact between cultured and pragmatic elites - even 'gentlemen travelling for pleasure' - as well as pilgrimage and close artistic contact with the European Renaissance. Faroqhi's book is based on a huge study of original and early modern sources, including diplomatic records, travel and geographical writing, as well as personal accounts. Its breadth and originality will make it essential reading for historians of Europe and the Middle East.

Combining the vivid and colorful detail of a micro-history with a wider historical perspective, this groundbreaking study looks at the urban and social history of a small neighborhood community (a mahalle) of Ottoman Istanbul, the Kasap İlyas. Drawing on exceptionally rich historical documentation starting in the early sixteenth century, Cem Behar focuses on how the Kasap İlyas mahalle came to mirror some of the overarching issues of the capital city of the Ottoman Empire. Also considered are other issues central to the historiography of cities, such as rural migration and urban integration of migrants, including avenues for professional integration and the solidarity networks migrants formed, and the role of historical guilds and non-guild labor, the ancestor of the "informal" or "marginal" sector found today in less developed countries.

This major new history of the Ottoman dynasty reveals a diverse empire that straddled East and West. The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic, Asian antithesis of the Christian, European West. But the reality was starkly different: the Ottomans’ multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious domain reached deep into Europe’s heart. Indeed, the Ottoman rulers saw themselves as the new Romans. Recounting the Ottomans’ remarkable rise from a frontier principality to a world empire, historian Marc David Baer traces their debts to their Turkish, Mongolian, Islamic, and Byzantine heritage. The Ottomans pioneered religious toleration even as they used religious conversion to integrate conquered peoples. But in the nineteenth century, they embraced exclusivity, leading to ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the empire’s demise after the First World War. The Ottomans vividly reveals the dynasty’s full history and its enduring impact on Europe and the world.

Osmanlı Beyliği 14. yüzyıl başında Ortaçağ dünyasının karanlık deniziyle tanıştı. Venedik ve Cenevizlilerle yapılan savaşlar, Rumeli fütuhatı, ilk tersânelerin kuruluşu bu dönemde gerçekleşti. İstanbul’un fethi Beylikten İmparatorluğa geçiş sürecini noktalarken, Akdeniz ve Karadeniz’i siyasi coğrafyada birleştirecek güçlü bir donanmanın da temelleri atıldı. Rönesans’ın sonlarında korsanlığın etkisi azaldı ve Barbaros Hayreddîn Paşa’nın kişiliğinde Osmanlı denizciliği altın çağını yaşadı. Yeni Dünya’nın keşfi denizcilik dünyasında devrim yapmıştı. Osmanlı Donanmasının Seyir Defteri: Gemiler, Efsaneler, Denizciler sergisi, birbiriyle bütünleşen üç farklı deniz mitolojisini iç içe geçiriyor. Osmanlı denizcilik tarihinin zihinlere kazınmış gemileri, katıldıkları savaşlar ve bu savaşlarda efsaneleşen kahramanlar, tarihsel boyutuyla uygarlık sahnesinde yerlerini alıyorlar. Kurgunun merkezinde geleneksel denizcilik anlayışından modern denizciliğe geçişin olağanüstü serüveni var. İktidar arzuları, yıkılan tahtlar ve insanın kendi kaderini denizle özdeşleştirmesi bu serüvenin ardındaki belki de en eski öykü. Günümüze miras kalmış 16. yüzyıl Osmanlı kadırgasından Yavuz zırhlısına uzanan bir tarihin köşe taşları, denizcilerin anılarıyla yeniden günışığına çıkıyor. ---- Ottoman Principality was intro-duced to the dark sea of the Middle Ages in early 14th century. The battles with the Venetians and the Genoese, conquests in Rumelia, and the establishment of the first shipyards all took place during this period. As the conquest of İstanbul marked the end of the period of transition from Principality to Empire, the foundations of a strong navy that would unite the Mediterranean and the Black Sea over a political geography were laid. The power of the corsairs diminished by the end of the Renaissance; Barbaros Hayreddîn Pasha personified the golden age of Ottoman sea power. The Logbook of the Ottoman Navy: Ships, Legends, Sailors exhibition intertwined three distinct, yet integrated mythologies of the sea. The imprint of the ships in Ottoman seafaring history, the battles they were engaged in and the heroes who became legendary in these battles assume their places on the stage of civilization in their historic magnitude. At the center of the construct lies the extraordinary adventure of the transition from traditional to modern seafaring methods. The quest for power, the demolished thrones and man's identification of his fate with the sea is perhaps the oldest story behind this adventure. The cornerstones of a long history that extends from the legacy of a 16th-century Ottoman galley to the battlecruiser Yavuz, is once again brought to the light of day through the memories of seamen.

From the fall of Constantinople in 1453 until the eighteenth century, many Western European writers viewed the Ottoman Empire with almost obsessive interest. Typically they reacted to it with fear and distrust; and such feelings were reinforced by the deep hostility of Western Christendom towards Islam. Yet there was also much curiosity about the social and political system on which the huge power of the sultans was based. In the sixteenth century, especially, when Ottoman territorial expansion was rapid and Ottoman institutions seemed particularly robust, there was even open admiration. In this path-breaking book Noel Malcolm ranges through these vital centuries of East-West interaction, studying all the ways in which thinkers in the West interpreted the Ottoman Empire as a political phenomenon - and Islam as a political religion. Useful Enemies shows how the concept of 'oriental despotism' began as an attempt to turn the tables on a very positive analysis of Ottoman state power, and how, as it developed, it interacted with Western debates about monarchy and government. Noel Malcolm also shows how a negative portrayal of Islam as a religion devised for political purposes was assimilated by radical writers, who extended the criticism to all religions, including Christianity itself. Examining the works of many famous thinkers (including Machiavelli, Bodin, and Montesquieu) and many less well-known ones, Useful Enemies illuminates the long-term development of Western ideas about the Ottomans, and about Islam. Noel Malcolm shows how these ideas became intertwined with internal Western debates about power, religion, society, and war. Discussions of Islam and the Ottoman Empire were thus bound up with mainstream thinking in the West on a wide range of important topics. These Eastern enemies were not just there to be denounced. They were there to be made use of, in arguments which contributed significantly to the development of Western political thought.

This illustrated textbook covers the full history of the Ottoman Empire, from its genesis to its dissolution.