Useful Enemies

Useful Enemies: Islam and The Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450-1750

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.

Review: Noel Malcolm has provided a masterpiece in the history of ideas... * Ritchie Robertson, The Times Literary Supplement, Books of the Year 2019 *
The author is one of the great scholars of our time ... Malcolm has here uncovered an entirely new field of inquiry, ranging from Machiavelli to Montesquieu, and embracing many less familiar but fascinating thinkers en route... * Daniel Johnson, Mosaic, Best Books of 2019 *
A timely look at how the perceived threat of Islam shaped early modern Europe... This is a potentially polarising topic, ripe for ill-informed claims and tendentious commentary. Malcolm is one of the handful of people capable of taking it on with scholarly rigour and clarity... Anyone who wants to understand how we got to where we are today should read this book. * Tim Laing Smith, The Daily Telegraph *
[A] wise and beautifully judged book... * Christopher de Bellaigue, The Guardian *
Useful Enemies is an exhaustive study of such uses of the Ottomans and Islam in early modern European political writing. * Jan Loop, Journal of Modern History *
Noel Malcolm's impressive inquiry ... is remarkable for its insight, order and clarity of exposition. * Rolando Minuti, Journal of Ecclesiastical History *
Useful Enemies offers a balanced and nuanced view on how and why the Westerners perceived the otherness and how, over time, different authors and different testimonies about the Ottomans intertwined one with another in a construction of a complicate 'image'... This book also may be seen as an invitation for scholars to think about how the Ottomans were perceived in Eastern Europe. * Ovidiu Cristea, Institute of History 'Nicolae Iorga', European History Quarterly *
Noel Malcolm's brilliant study ... a wealth of scholarship drawing on primary sources in many languages ... The book's importance is thus not only to do with its nuanced account of the varieties of western European responses to Islam - though this is valuable enough... * Rowan Williams, New Statesman *
Learned and fascinating account... * Sameer Rahim, Prospect Magazine *
[A] richly research and commendably lucid new book ... As with all Malcolm's work, the power of the underlying scholarship in Useful Enemies - the archives visited, the languages mastered - is deeply impressive. Perhaps still more impressive, however, is the way Malcolm has organised and shaped his material into a subtle, many-faceted exposition that is always clear and never feels forced or sophisticated... * David Womersely, Standpoint *
An indispensable guide to that encounter that combines deep learning, refined historical judgment, and an elegant authorial voice. Malcolm describes his book as "a study of Western political thinking about Islam and the Ottoman Empire in the early modern period," roughly 1450 to 1750. But the book offers much more than that. * James Hankins, New Criterion *
Useful Enemies provides a model for how a book that articulates its core objective with judicious precision can open a window, simultaneously, onto a landscape of intellectual cross-fertilization. * World History Connected *
... impressive inquiry, which is remarkable for its insight, order and clarity of exposition... , strongly grounded on philological and historical inquiry. * Journal of Ecclesiastical History *
Noel Malcolm displays an overwhelming erudition and vast linguistic abilities which underline why Useful Enemies will be a mandatory reference book for any scholar who, from now on, intends to study the interactions between the Ottomans and the Christian world. This book also may be seen as an invitation for scholars to think about how the Ottomans were perceived in Eastern Europe. * Ovidiu Cristea, European History Quarterly *