Remapping the Ottoman Middle East

Review: 'In Remapping the Ottoman Middle East, Cem Emrence analyzes the paradigms in which late ottoman history has been written. His original contribution is the conceptualisation of the body of work produced in recent decades on social and cultural history, and the analysis of the latter's linkages to the earlier currents of modernisation and dependency studies. Emrence approaches the relatively new trend under the rubric of bargaining perspectives, repositions its relationship to the centre and 'macro' trends, but goes beyond binary constructs such as centre-periphery and state-society by investigating multi-faceted networks on the regional and imperial level. The combination of synthetic and analytical skills Emrence displays in his work is remarkable. He has internalised a vast body of historical literature, which he skilfully and creatively distils through the lens of social scientific concepts and categories. The result is a significant contribution to late Ottoman Studies.' --Hasan Kayali, Associate Professor of History, University of California 'Cem Emrence has an excellent mastery of the historical and theoretical literature, and an elegant and genuinely novel model of the social transformation of imperial populations. He argues that there were parallel and alternative forces in the different geographies of the Ottoman Empire, impelling different forms of negotiation both with the centre and with european imposition. This book is an important contribution to the growing field of the historical sociology of empires and a milestone in Ottoman Studies.' --Caglar Keyder, Professor of Sociology, Binghamton University, SUNY