Ottoman Empire
“We Understand the Railway’s Advantages”: Ottoman Railroads and Modernization in 1900
A discussion of teaching the Ottoman Empire around 1900 using Sirkeci railway station in Istanbul.
“A Right Notion of Life”: The Ottomans in 1700
A discussion of teaching the Ottoman Empire in 1700 using an image of the Sultan’s mother drinking coffee.
“To take lads for the Janissaries”: Making Sense of the Devşirme
A discussion of teaching the Ottoman practice of the devşirme in world history classes.
An Elephant in Belgrade: The Ottoman Empire as an Afroeurasian Empire in the Sixteenth Century
A discussion of teaching the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century as an Afroeurasia empire using an image from the Süleymanname.
“Addicted to the Coffeehouse”: Snapshots from the Ottoman Empire
A discussion of the challenges of teaching the Ottomans in world history courses and how to use an Ottoman coffeehouse to teach about the empire
Healing the Sick Man of Europe
If the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was going through a period of transformation, rather than beginning a 400-year decline, it would seem that the Empire, which collapsed in 1922, had to be declining in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While it’s true that the Empire
When the End of Growth is not the Beginning of Decline
If the myth of isolation is one of the main consequences of Eurocentrism for how we think about the history of East Asia, Eurocentric approaches to the history of the Ottoman Empire have encouraged us to begin to see its actual end in 1922 long before it occurred. A quick
