The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe [Paperback]

Daniel Goffman's lucid and accessible book examines Ottoman relations with Europe in the Early Modern period.Daniel Goffman's lucid and accessible book examines Ottoman relations with Europe in the Early Modern period. Despite the fact that its capital city and over one third of its territory was within the continent of Europe, the Ottoman Empire has consistently been regarded as a place apart, inextricably divided from the West by differences of culture and religion. This new study argues that, beginning in the fourteenth century, the Ottoman Empire slowly became part of Europe not only physically but institutionally and psychologically as well.Daniel Goffman's lucid and accessible book examines Ottoman relations with Europe in the Early Modern period. Despite the fact that its capital city and over one third of its territory was within the continent of Europe, the Ottoman Empire has consistently been regarded as a place apart, inextricably divided from the West by differences of culture and religion. This new study argues that, beginning in the fourteenth century, the Ottoman Empire slowly became part of Europe not only physically but institutionally and psychologically as well.Despite the fact that its capital city and over one third of its territory was within the continent of Europe, the Ottoman Empire has consistently been regarded as a place apart, inextricably divided from the West by differences of culture and religion. A perception of its militarism, its barbarism, its tyranny, the sexual appetites of its rulers and its pervasive exoticism has led historians to measure the Ottoman world against a western standard and find it lacking. In recent decades, a dynamic and convincing scholarship has emerged that seeks to comprehend and, in the process, to de-exoticize this enduring realm. Dan Goffman provides a thorough introduction to the history and institutions of the Ottoman Empire from this new standpoint, and presents a claim for its inclusion in Europe. Hil#)