BOOK: Gábor ÁGOSTON, The Last Muslim Conquest: The Ottoman Empire and Its Wars in Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021), 592 p. ISBN 9780691159324, USD 39,95

  

(image source: Princeton)

Abstract:

The Ottomans have long been viewed as despots who conquered through sheer military might, and whose dynasty was peripheral to those of Europe. The Last Muslim Conquest transforms our understanding of the Ottoman Empire, showing how Ottoman statecraft was far more pragmatic and sophisticated than previously acknowledged, and how the Ottoman dynasty was a crucial player in the power struggles of early modern Europe. In this panoramic and multifaceted book, Gábor Ágoston captures the grand sweep of Ottoman history, from the dynasty’s stunning rise to power at the turn of the fourteenth century to the Siege of Vienna in 1683, which brought an end to Ottoman incursions into central Europe. He discusses how the Ottoman wars of conquest gave rise to the imperial rivalry with the Habsburgs, and brings vividly to life the intrigues of sultans, kings, popes, and spies. Ágoston examines the subtler methods of Ottoman conquest, such as dynastic marriages and the incorporation of conquered peoples into the Ottoman administration, and argues that while the Ottoman Empire was shaped by Turkish, Iranian, and Islamic influences, it was also an integral part of Europe and was, in many ways, a European empire. Rich in narrative detail, The Last Muslim Conquest looks at Ottoman military capabilities, frontier management, law, diplomacy, and intelligence, offering new perspectives on the gradual shift in power between the Ottomans and their European rivals and reframing the old story of Ottoman decline.

On the author:

Gábor Ágoston is associate professor of history at Georgetown University. His many books include Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire and Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. He lives in Alexandria, Virginia 

(source: Princeton) 

BOOK: Géraud POUMARÈDE, L’Empire de Venise et les Turcs. XVIe-XVIIe siècle [Histoire des Temps modernes; 7] (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2020), 740 p. ISBN 978-2-406-10327-1

 

(image source: Classiques Garnier)

Book presentation:

Cet ouvrage analyse les relations vénéto-ottomanes depuis l’empire maritime de Venise. Ce dernier occupe une place centrale parmi les fondements symboliques de la puissance vénitienne ; il détermine les décisions, par lesquelles la classe dirigeante de la Sérénissime définit ses rapports avec la Porte.

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BOOK: Colin HEYWOOD & Ivan PARVEV (Eds.), The Treaties of Carlowitz: Antecedents, Course and Consequences (Leiden-New York: Brill, 2020). ISBN 978-90-04-40950-7, EUR 105.00

 

(Source: Brill)

Brill has published a new book on the Treaties of Carlowitz (1699).

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Treaties of Carlowitz (1699) includes recent studies on the Lega Sacra War of 1683-1699 against the Ottoman Empire, the Peace treaties of Carlowitz (1699), and on the general impact of the conflict upon Modern Europe and the Balkans. With its contributions written by well-known international specialists in the field, the volume demonstrates that sometimes important conflicts tend to be forgotten with time, overshadowed by more spectacular wars, peace congresses or diplomatic alliances. The “Long War” of 1683-1699 is a case in point. By re-thinking and re-writing the history of the conflict and the subsequent peacemaking between a Christian alliance and the Ottoman state at the end of the 17th century, new perspectives, stretching into the present era, for the history of Europe, the Balkans and the Near East are brought into discussion.

 

Contributors are: Tatjana Bazarova, Maurits van den Boogert, John Paul Ghobrial, Abdullah Güllüoğlu, Zoltan Györe, Colin Heywood, Lothar Höbelt, Erica Ianiro, Charles Ingrao, Dzheni Ivanova, Kirill Kochegarov, Dariusz Kołodziejzcyk, Hans Georg Majer, Ivan Parvev, Arno Strohmeier.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Colin Heywood, Ph.D. (London, 1970) is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Hull. He has published numerous studies and articles on Ottoman history and historiography and on Mediterranean and maritime history in the late medieval and early modern period. 

Ivan Parvev, Ph.D. (1993), Habil. D. (2011), University of Sofia, is Professor of Early Modern Balkan history at that university. He has published monographs and articles on Habsburg-Balkan relations, including Land in Sicht. Südosteuropa in den deutschen politischen Zeitschriften des 18. Jahrhunderts (Zabern, 2008).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Preface 
  About the Authors 
  Introduction 

Part 1: The War of 1683–1699 – Political Strategies and Balance of Power in Europe

 1On the Road to Carlowitz: Visions of Ottoman Diplomacy in the Letters of Thomas Coke, 1691–1694 
  Jean-Paul A. Ghobrial 
 2‘This Great Work’: Lord Paget and the Processes of English Mediating Diplomacy in the Latter Stages of the Sacra Lega War, 1697–1698 
  Colin Heywood 
 3The Spoils of Peace: What the Dutch Got Out of Carlowitz 
  Maurits H. van den Boogert 
 4The War of 1683–1699 and the Beginning of the Eastern Question 
  Ivan Parvev 

Part 2: The Sacra Lega War Viewed by the Sublime Porte

 5Ottoman Diplomacy in the First Years (1683–1685) of the Ottoman “Long War” 
  Abdullah Güllüoğlu 
 6Ottoman Subjects, Habsburg Allies. The Reaya of the Chiprovtsi Region (Northwestern Bulgaria) on the Front Line, 1688–1690 
  Dzheni Ivanova 
 7Ottoman Knowledge of the Imperial Commanders 
  Hans Georg Majer 

Part 3: Time for War, Time for Peace

 8From Slankamen to Zenta: The Austrian War Effort in the East during the 1690s 
  Lothar Höbelt 
 9The Habsburgs and the Holy League: Religion or Realpolitik? 
  Charles Ingrao 
 10From the ‘Eternal Peace’ to the Treaty of Carlowitz: Relations between Russia, the Sublime Porte and the Crimean Khanate (1686–1699) 
  Kirill Kochegarov 
 11The Treaty of Carlowitz in Polish Memory – A Date Better Forgotten? 
  Dariusz Kołodziejczyk 
 12The Symbolic Making of the Peace of Carlowitz: The Border Crossing of Count Wolfgang IV of Oettingen-Wallerstein during His Mission as Imperial Grand Ambassador to the Sublime Porte (1699–1701) 
  Arno Strohmeyer 
 13The Treaty of Carlowitz and its Impact on Russian-Ottoman Relations, 1700–1710 
  Tatiana Bazarova 

Part 4: Early Modern Demographic and Economic Context

 14War and Demography: The Case of Hungary 1521–1718 
  Zoltán Györe 
 15Venice after Carlowitz: Change and Challenge in Eighteenth-century Venetian Policy 
  Erica Ianiro 
 Concluding Remarks 
  Index 

 

More info here

(source: ESCLH Blog)

ARTICLE: William MULLIGAN, " Decisions for Empire: Revisiting the 1882 Occupation of Egypt" (English Historical Review CXXXV (2020), nr. 572 (Feb), 94-126)

(image source: Oxford Journals)

Abstract:

The decision of Gladstone’s government to invade and occupy Egypt in 1882 remains one of the most contentious in late nineteenth-century British political and imperial history. This article examines the decision-making process in June and July 1882, revisiting Robinson and Gallagher’s influential study in the light of more recent historiographical research and previously unused sources. It looks at who made the critical decisions, what their preoccupations were, and how they were able to get Cabinet approval. Hartington and Northbrook were the two key figures, who co-operated to overturn Gladstone’s and Granville’s policy in June 1882. Yet their co-operation was momentary and they found themselves on different sides of the argument over the participation of Indian forces and international support. Although they shared a sense of Egypt’s importance to British imperial security, they each had a distinctive approach, so that the decision to occupy cannot be reduced to a conflict between Whig pragmatists and Radical idealists. The article also shows how the Alexandria riot on 11 June altered the context of decision-making by shifting the mood in the parliamentary Liberal party towards intervention. Parliament, not the press, was the crucial site of ‘public opinion’ in the Egyptian crisis in June and July 1882.

Read more with Oxford Journals.

BOOK: Viorel PANAITE, Ottoman Law of War and Peace - The Ottoman Empire and Its Tribute-Payers from the North of the Danube., 2nd ed. (Leiden - New York, 2019). ISBN 978-90-04-41110-4, €149.00

(Source: Brill)

Brill has published a second, revised edition of “Ottoman Law of War and Peace”.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Making use of legal and historical sources, Viorel Panaite analyzes the status of tribute-payers from the north of the Danube with reference to Ottoman law of peace and war. He deals with the impact of Ottoman holy war and the way conquest in Southeast Europe took place; the role of temporary covenants, imperial diplomas and customary norms in outlining the rights and duties of the tributary princes; the power relations between the Ottoman Empire and the tributary-protected principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania. He also focuses on the legal and political methods applied to extend the pax ottomanica system in the area, rather than on the elements that set these territories apart from the rest of the Ottoman Empire.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Viorel Panaite, PhD (1995), University of Bucharest, is Professor of Ottoman History, and Researcher at the Institute of Southeast European Studies, Romanian Academy. He has extensively published on war, peace and tributaries in Ottoman view, and Western merchants in the Levant.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgments

List of Facsimiles, Illustrations and Maps

Transliteration and Pronunciation of Turkish and Romanian

Abbreviations

Part 1: Ottoman Law of War and Peace

1 Islamic Tradition and the Ottoman Law of War and Peace

Part 2: The Danube as a Gazi River

2 The Ottoman Ideology of Holy War

3 Ottoman Holy War to the North of the Danube

Part 3: Submission and Conquest

4 The Islamic Ottoman Law of Peace

5 Obeying Ottoman Sultans in Southeastern Europe: a Chronological Survey

6 From Allegiance to Conquest: Terminology, Meanings, Myths

Part 4: Covenants and Customs

7 Ottoman Peace Agreements

8 Oaths as a Guarantee of Fidelity

9 Pacta Sunt Servanda and Tributary Status

10 Customary Practices

Part 5: Tribute-Payers and Protected Peoples

11 Sultans and Voivodes

12 Voivodes as Tribute-Payers

13 Reʿayas and Protected Peoples

14 Tributary-Protected Principalities

Conclusion

Glossary of Ottoman Turkish Terms and Locutions on War, Peace and Tributaries

Table of Correspondence

Bibliography

Index

More information here

(source: ESCLH Blog)

JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUE: Journal of the History of International Law/Revue d'histoire du droit international, Symposium on International Legal Histories of the Ottoman Empire, co-edited by Umut Özsu and Thomas Skouteris

(Source: Brill)

The Journal of the History of International Law/Revue d'histoire du droit international 

has prepared a special issue on the International Legal Histories of the Ottoman Empire Symposium, co-edited by Umut Özsu and Thomas Skouteris.

Table of Contents:

International Legal Histories of the Ottoman Empire: An Introduction to the Symposium (Umut Özsu and Thomas Skouteris)

Page Count 4

European Legal Doctrines on Intervention and the Status of the Ottoman Empire within the ‘Family of Nations’ Throughout the Nineteenth Century (Davide Rodogno)

Page Count 41

War without War: The Battle of Navarino, the Ottoman Empire, and the Pacific Blockade (Will Smiley)

Page Count 69

The Ottoman ‘School’ of International Law as Featured in Textbooks (Berdal Aral)

Page Count 97

International Lawyers without Public International Law: The Case of Late Ottoman Egypt (Will Hanley)

Page Count 119

Forced Migration as Nation-Building: The League of Nations, Minority Protection, and the Greek-Turkish Population Exchange (Sarah Shields)

Page Count 145