The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World

By Baki Tezcan

Book Overview

Although scholars have begun to revise the traditional view that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries marked a decline in the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire, Baki Tezcan's book proposes a radical approach to this period. While he concurs that decline did take place in certain areas, he constructs a new framework by foregrounding the proto-democratization of the Ottoman polity in this era. Focusing on the background and the aftermath of the regicide of Osman II, he shows how the empire embarked on a period of seismic change in the political, economic, military, and social spheres. It is this period - from roughly 1580 to 1826 - that the author labels 'The Second Empire', and that he sees as no less than the transformation of the patrimonial, medieval, dynastic institution into a fledgling limited monarchy. The book is essentially a post-revisionist history of the early modern Ottoman Empire that will make a major contribution not only to Ottoman scholarship but also to comparable trends in world history.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1107411440
• ISBN13: 9781107411449
• Release Date: October 2012
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 306 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"