Forging Urban Solidarities: Ottoman Aleppo 1640-1700 (The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage, 41)

Book info: Forging Urban Solidarities: Ottoman Aleppo 1640-1700 (The Ottoman Empire and its Heritage, 41) (Hardcover, 344 pages) – Brill, 2009. Language: English.

As with most empires of the Early Modern period (1500-1800), the Ottomans mobilized human and material resources for warmaking on a scale that was vast and unprecedented. The present volume examines the direct and indirect effects of warmaking on Aleppo, an important Ottoman administrative center and Levantine trading city, as the empire engaged in multiple conflicts, including wars with Venice (1644-69), Poland (1672-76) and the Hapsburg Empire (1663-64, 1683-99). Focusing on urban institutions such as residential quarters, military garrisons, and guilds, and using intensively the records of local law courts, the study explores how the routinization of direct imperial taxes and the assimilation of soldiers to civilian life challenged – and reshaped – the city’s social and political order. Editorial Reviews Review “…the book remains of interest for scholars and students of Aleppo’s history and serves as an example for the wealth of information that can be found in its archives.”
Thomas Phillip, H-Soz-u-Kult, H-Het Reviews, December 2010
About the Author Charles L. Wilkins, Ph.D. (2006) in History and Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, is Assistant Professor of History at Wake Forest University. He specializes in the history of the Arab Provinces of the Ottoman Empire.