Drawing on contributions from an international group of more than forty established and emerging academics, this Handbook of the Late Ottoman Empire and the Modern Middle East presents an in-depth exploration of the scholarship that has recently emerged in the vibrant fields and subfields on the religious and ethnic communities and nation-states it covers. Within the broad rubric of political history, it tackles religion, gender, identity, social conditions, environment and histories from below, from peripheries and from borderlands.
May 21, 2024
Divided into six sections with six to eight chapters in each, the volume guides the reader chronologically through transformations shaped by the empire’s political elite and stakeholders large and small: from Abdulhamid’s rule, the Constitutional period and the Great War to unmet milestones when new treaties determined the post-Ottoman Middle East for a century to come. Throughout, thematic chapters revise a linear vision of history. These diachronic explorations trace the long arc of issues such as environment or religiously defined communities, as well as shadows cast by the seismic shifts under study like refugee crises, demographic engineering, transnational revolutionaries and borderlanders, (re)imaginings of the caliphate and of eschatological futures, and the legacies and afterlives of treaties.
Surveying the state of the art of the scholarship its interdisciplinary dimensions and future directions, and foregrounding the formative role of mass violence in the history of the region, this handbook serves as a reference to researchers, diplomats, students, and the general reader.
Table of Contents
Editors’ Introduction–Hans Lukas Kieser and Khatchig Mouradian
Section I. Late-Ottoman Coexistence: Reforms and Transformations in a Premodern Empire
Section introduction
Reform in the Ottoman Empire: Reform of the Ottoman Empire?-Marc Aymes
The Rum in the Late Ottoman Empire-Merih Erol
Armenians in a Plural-Late Ottoman Society-Varak Ketsemanian
Ottoman Jews During the Last Ottoman Century-Julia P. Cohen
Medical history of the late Ottoman Empire-Hratch Kestenian
Section II. Crises, Violence and Revolutionism
Section introduction
Catalysing change: The late-Ottoman and ex-Ottoman Balkans-Dimitris Stamatopoulos
The Late-Ottoman Army-Elke Hartmann
Sultan Abdulhamid II: From Chaos to Autocracy-Edhem Eldem
Public violence, regional and urban pogroms-Umit Kurt and Owen Miller
New approaches to the Hamidian Massacres (1894-1897)-Jelle Verheij and Owen Miller
The Muhajir: Muslim Displacement in the Last Ottoman Century-Candan Badem
Section III. Nationalism, Transnational Actors, and International Relations
Section introduction
Genesis and Trajectory of Kurdish Nationalism towards the End of the Ottoman Empire-Metin Atmaca The Arab National Question at the End of the Ottoman Empire and its Afterlives-Seda Altug
Palestine and Zionism During the Period of Abdülhamid II and the Young Turks-Louis Fishman
Late Ottoman foreign policy, international relations and international law-Aimee Genell
Western missionaries in the Ottoman Empire-Chantal Verdeil
Section IV. The Constitutional Era: From the Ottoman Spring to Party Dictatorship
Section introduction
The 1908 Young Turk Revolution: Enthusiasm and Realities-Dikran Kaligian
Particularism vs. Universalism: Ottomanism and Constitutionalism During the Second Constitutional Period-Banu Turnaoglu
From parliamentarism to party-state with ‘Special Organisation’: The Committee of Union and Progress, 1908-1918-Erdal Kaynar
Intra- and Inter-Communal Relationships in Palestine During the Last Years of Ottoman Rule, 1908-1917-Yuval Ben-Bassat
Race as Culture: The Constructions of Race in the Formative Turkish Nationalism (1911–1916)-Umit Kurt and Dogan Gürpinar
Section V. Wars and Genocide
Section introduction
The Balkan Wars, World War I and Ottoman Society-Yigit Akin
Demographic Engineering and the Armenian Genocide-Khatchig Mouradian
The Genocide of the Assyrians and the Pontus Rûm-David Gaunt
Dispossession of Christians in Asia Minor, 1914-1923 –Mehmet Polatel
The Anatolian Wars and commander in chief Gazi Mustafa Kemal-Ahmet Demirel
Neo-Ottomanism and the Memory of the Great War in Turkey-Selim Deringil
Section VI. Treaties and their defining impact
Section introduction
Treaty of Lausanne: The Foundation of the Post-Ottoman World-Hans-Lukas Kieser
New States, New Borders, New Issues? The Kurds, 1918–38-Jordi Tejel
Turkey and the League of Nations-Caroline Liebisch-Gümüs
‘Azniv Efendi, where were you five years ago?’: Nationalist Policies and the Precarious Situation of the Armenian Community in the Republic of Turkey-Ari Sekeryan
Dead States and Living Legacies: Experiments in Self-Rule from the Republic of Mount Ararat to Northeast Syria-Amy Austin Holmes
Section VII. The Quest for Belonging in the Post-Ottoman Space
Section introduction
The Afterlife of Christian Missionary Education in Turkey: Teaching Liberal Internationalism Under Kemalism-Erik Sjoberg
Discarding the Ottoman and Asserting The National: Armenian Diasporic Church Architecture In 1930s Lebanon-Vahé Tachjian and Joseph Rustom
Writing Ottomans into Arab History: Historiographies on the Empire in Late and Post-Ottoman Arab Spaces-Aline Schlaepfer
Contention and protest in Turkey-Derya Özkaya
Afterword: Historiography’s history-Hamit Bozarslan