Download or read book The Empress Nurbanu and Ottoman Politics in the Sixteenth Century written by Pinar Kayaalp and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-09 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nurbanu (1525–1583) is one of the most prominent yet least studied royal women of the Ottoman dynasty. Her political and administrative career began when she was chosen as the favorite concubine of the crown prince Selim. Nurbanu’s authority increased when her son Murad was singled out as crown prince. By 1574, when her son, Murad III became Sultan, Nurbanu officially took on the title of Valide Sultan, or Queen Mother, holding the highest office of the imperial harem until her death in 1583. This book concentrates on the Atik Valide mosque complex, which constitutes the architectural embodiment of Nurbanu’s prestige, power and piety. The arrangement of the chapters is designed to enable readers to reconsider Ottoman imperial patronage practices of the late sixteenth century using the architectural enterprise of a remarkable woman as the common thread. Chapter 1 provides a general history of the wqaf institution to inform on its origins and evolution. Chapter 2 looks closely at the political dealings of Nurbanu, both in the domestic and the international sphere, building upon research concerning Ottoman royal women and power dynamics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Chapter 3 presents a textual analysis of the written records pertaining to Nurbanu’s imperial mosque complex. Chapter 4 examines the distinctive physical qualities and functional features of the Atik Valide within its urban context. The book concludes by assessing to what extent Nurbanu was involved in the representation of her power and piety through the undertaking of her eponymous monument. Providing a complete study of the life and times of this Ottoman empress, this book will appeal to students and scholars of Ottoman studies, gender studies, history of art and architecture, Islamic studies, history of religion and Middle Eastern studies.

Download or read book Women in the Ottoman Empire written by Suraiya Faroqhi and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-01-26 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is an often ignored but fundamental fact that in the Ottoman world, as in most empires, there were 'first-class' and 'second class' subjects. Among the townspeople, peasants and nomads subject to the sultans, who might be Muslims or non-Muslims, adult Muslim males were first-class subjects and all others, including Muslim boys and women, were of the second class. As for the female members of the elite, while less privileged than the males, in some respects their life chances might be better than those of ordinary women. Even so, they shared the risks of pregnancy, childbirth and epidemic diseases with townswomen of the subject class and to a certain extent, with village women as well. Thus, the study of Ottoman women is indispensable for understanding Ottoman society in general. In this book, the agency of women from a diverse range of class, religious, ethnic, and geographic backgrounds is, for the first time, woven into the social and political history of the Ottoman Empire, from the early-modern period to its dissolution in 1918. Suraiya Faroqhi charts the history of elite and non-elite women in thematic chapters concentrating on urban women, family life, work, slavery, education and survival in times of war. In the process the book introduces readers to the key sources, primary and secondary, necessary to reconstruct and understand the ways that females navigated social, legal and economic constraints, through the central prisms of family relations, work and charity. The first introductory social history of women in the Ottoman Empire, and including a timeline and extended further reading section, this book will be essential reading for scholars and students of Ottoman history and the history of women in the Middle East.

Download or read book Venice s Secret Service written by Ioanna Iordanou and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-28 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Venice's Secret Service is the untold and arresting story of the world's earliest centrally-organised state intelligence service. Long before the inception of SIS and the CIA, in the period of the Renaissance, the Republic of Venice had masterminded a remarkable centrally-organised state intelligence organisation that played a pivotal role in the defence of the Venetian empire. Housed in the imposing Doge's Palace and under the direction of the Council of Ten, the notorious governmental committee that acted as Venice's spy chiefs, this 'proto-modern' organisation served prominent intelligence functions including operations (intelligence and covert action), analysis, cryptography and steganography, cryptanalysis, and even the development of lethal substances. Official informants and amateur spies were shipped across Europe, Anatolia, and Northern Africa, conducting Venice's stealthy intelligence operations. Revealing a plethora of secrets, their keepers, and their seekers, Venice's Secret Service explores the social and managerial processes that enabled their existence and that furnished the foundation for an extraordinary intelligence organisation created by one of the early modern world's most cosmopolitan states.

Download or read book Saudi Arabia in the Anglo American Press written by Abdullah F. Alrebh and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-10-20 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides an in-depth analysis of authority structures in Saudi Arabia during the twentieth century, as presented in two leading Western newspapers, The London Times and The New York Times. Beginning with a history of Saudi Arabia – from the building of the Kingdom in 1901, when Ibn Saud left his exile in Kuwait to recover Riyadh back from Al-Rasheed’s rule, until the death of King Fahd in 2005 – the author then outlines the theoretical framework of the book, specifically Weber’s original conception of authority. Weber’s notion of authority as having three types – traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal – is applied to an analysis of the two newspapers over the course of the twentieth century. A timeline is devised to aid this analysis, based on significant turning points in Saudi history, including Ibn Saud’s declaration of the Kingdom in 1932 and King Faisal’s assassination in 1975. Ultimately, this analysis discloses the many ways in which conceptions of authority in the Middle East were presented to Western audiences, whilst illuminating the political agendas inherent to this coverage in the UK and the US. This book is vital reading for anyone interested in Saudi Arabian history, Western perspectives of the Middle East, and the sociology of media.

Download or read book Britain and the Arab Gulf after Empire written by Simon C. Smith and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-03-08 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although Britain’s formal imperial role in the smaller, oil-rich sheikdoms of the Arab Gulf – Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates – ended in 1971, Britain continued to have a strong interest and continuing presence in the region. This book explores the nature of Britain’s role after the formal end of empire. It traces the historical events of the post-imperial years, including the 1973 oil shock, the fall of the Shah in Iran and the beginnings of the Iran-Iraq War, considers the changing positions towards the region of other major world powers, including the United States, and engages with debates on the nature of empire and the end of empire. The book is a sequel to the authors’ highly acclaimed previous books Britain's Revival and Fall in the Gulf: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the Trucial States, 1950-71 (Routledge 2004) and Ending Empire in the Middle East: Britain, the United States and Post-war Decolonization, 1945-1973 (Routledge 2012).

Download or read book America s Arab Nationalists written by Aaron Berman and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-11-04 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America’s Arab Nationalists focuses in on the relationship between Arab nationalists and Americans in the struggle for independence in an era when idealistic Americans could see the Arab nationalist struggle as an expression of their own values. In the first three decades of the twentieth century (from the 1908 Ottoman revolution to the rise of Hitler), important and influential Americans, including members of the small Arab-American community, intellectually, politically and financially participated in the construction of Arab nationalism. This book tells the story of a diverse group of people whose contributions are largely unknown to the American public. The role Americans played in the development of Arab nationalism has been largely unexplored by historians, making this an important and original contribution to scholarship. This volume is of great interest to students and academics in the field, though the narrative style is accessible to anoyone interested in Arab nationalism, the conflict between Zionists and Palestinians, and the United States’ relationship with the Arab world.

Download or read book Hebrew Popular Journalism written by Ouzi Elyada and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book examines the birth, development, and mode of operation of the Hebrew popular press that progressed in Ottoman Palestine between 1884 and the eruption of World War I in 1914. The inquiry yields a profile of the printers, editors, and journalists, and examines the editors’ working patterns, the gathering of journalistic information, and distribution of the resulting product in the public sphere. Addressing the fact that nearly all of the Hebrew press in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries appealed to an elitist intellectual and affluent readership, the book breaks new ground by showing that from the 1880s onward, a popular press came into being in Palestine for the first time in the history of the Hebrew press. The focus is on three popular newspapers that evolved in Jerusalem along the lines of the Western popular press. While profiling the readership of the popular Hebrew press the book also investigates reading practices. Analyzing the contribution of the press to the modernization of the Hebrew language, this pioneering volume is a key resource for students and scholars of communication, media and Hebrew studies, and media and Jewish history.

Download or read book The British Mandate in Palestine written by Michael J Cohen and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-02-18 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The British Mandate over Palestine began just 100 years ago, in July 1920, when Sir Herbert Samuel, the first British High Commissioner to Palestine, took his seat at Government House, Jerusalem. The chapters here analyse a wide cross-section of the conflicting issues --social, political and strategical--that attended British colonial rule over the country, from 1920 to 1948. This anthology contains contributions by several of the most respected Israeli scholars in the field – Arab, Druze and Jewish. It is divided into three sections, covering the differing perspectives of the main ‘actors’ in the ‘Palestine Triangle’: the British, the Arabs and the Zionists. The concluding chapter identifies a pattern of seven counterproductive negotiating behaviours that explain the repeated failure of the parties to agree upon any of the proposals for an Arab-Zionist peace in Mandated Palestine. The volume is a modern review of the British Mandate in Palestine from different perspectives, which makes it a valuable addition to the field. It is a key resource for students and scholars interested in international relations, history of the Middle East, Palestine and Israel.

Download or read book The Changing Landscape of Israeli Archaeology written by Hayah Katz and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-07-31 with total page 126 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focused on the connections between archaeology and Israeli society, this book examines the development of Israeli archaeological research, taking historical, sociological, and political contexts into account. Adopting a Foucauldian framework of power and knowledge, the author begins by focusing on archaeological knowledge as a hegemonic discipline, buttressing the national Zionist identity after the establishment of the State of Israel. The liberalization of political culture in the late 1970s, it is argued, opened the door for a more democratized archaeological discipline. Making use of in-depth interviews with archaeologists belonging to various groups in Israeli society as well as documents from the Israel State Archives (ISA), the book touches on multiple fields of research, including Near Eastern archaeology, religious Jewish society, Israel/Palestine relations, and the status of women in Israel. Moreover, although the book deals with the sociology of Israeli archaeology specifically, the author’s comparative approach—which highlights the mirroring of social processes and the archaeological discipline—can also be applied to other societies. The book will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of archaeology, sociology, and Israel Studies, as well as to readers with a general interest in the archaeology of the Holy Land.

Download or read book Syrian Kurdish Intersections in the Ottoman Period written by Stéfan Winter and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2024-07-31 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Syrian-Kurdish Intersections in the Ottoman Period is a collection of essays on different aspects of the history of the Kurdish people in Syria under the Ottoman Empire, by specialists from Canada, Cyprus, Germany, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Syria, Turkey, and the United States. The book explores the junctures and crossings of Kurdish lives, Syrian geography in the broadest terms, and the Ottoman rule. The contributors draw on new research in Ottoman Turkish and Arabic, and a range of other archival and narrative sources to examine the history of Kurdish settlement in Syria, including Ottoman sedentarization policies, Kurdish notable families, trade, landowning, Kurdish-Bedouin relations, Kurdish-Ottoman civil servants, Sufism, and nineteenth-century state reforms. Syrian-Kurdish Intersections in the Ottoman Period traces a social, political, economic, and religious history across nearly 400 years.

Download or read book The Imperial Harem written by Leslie P. Peirce and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1993 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unpredecented political power of the Ottoman imperial harem in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a period popularly known as "the sultanate of women", is widely viewed as illegitimate and corrupting. Arguing against this viewpoint, The Imperial Harem examines the sources of royal women's power and assesses the reactions of contemporaries, which ranged from loyal devotion to armed opposition. In the Turkish heritage of the Ottomans, sovereign power was viewed as a right shared by the whole royal family. Whereas previous scholars have concentrated on the uneasy sharing of power among male dynasts, this book argues that the internal politics of the royal family made the power of women not only inevitable but integral to the dynasty's survival. By examining political action in the context of household networks, Peirce demonstrates that female power was a logical, indeed an intended, consequence of political structures. Peirce not only provides an overview of the dynasty's policies regulating the production of children by slave concubines and the choice of spouses for its members, but examines the ways in which women's power was manifested in day-to-day politics. Royal women were custodians of sovereign power, training their sons in its use and exercising it directly as regents when necessary. Furthermore, they played central roles in the public culture of sovereignty - royal ceremonies, large-scale building projects, and patronage of artistic production. The Imperial Harem argues that the exercise of political power in the Ottoman empire was tied to definitions of sexuality. Within the dynasty, the hierarchy of female power, like the hierarchy of male power, reflected the broadersociety's concern for social control of the sexually active.

Download or read book Ottoman Women Builders written by Lucienne Thys-Senocak and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-03-02 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examined here is the historical figure and architectural patronage of Hadice Turhan Sultan, the young mother of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed IV, who for most of the latter half of the seventeenth century shaped the political and cultural agenda of the Ottoman court. Captured in Russia at the age of twelve, she first served the reigning sultan's mother in Istanbul. She gradually rose through the ranks of the Ottoman harem, bore a male child to Sultan Ibrahim, and came to power as a valide sultan, or queen mother, in 1648. It was through her generous patronage of architectural works-including a large mosque, a tomb, a market complex in the city of Istanbul and two fortresses at the entrance to the Dardanelles-that she legitimated her new political authority as a valide and then attempted to support that of her son. Central to this narrative is the question of how architecture was used by an imperial woman of the Ottoman court who, because of customary and religious restrictions, was unable to present her physical self before her subjects' gaze. In lieu of displaying an iconic image of herself, as Queen Elizabeth and Catherine de Medici were able to do, Turhan Sultan expressed her political authority and religious piety through the works of architecture she commissioned. Traditionally historians have portrayed the role of seventeenth-century royal Ottoman women in the politics of the empire as negative and de-stabilizing. But Thys-Senocak, through her examination of these architectural works as concrete expressions of legitimate power and piety, shows the traditional framework to be both sexist and based on an outdated paradigm of decline. Thys-Senocak's research on Hadice Turhan Sultan's two Ottoman fortresses of Seddülbahir and Kumkale improves in a significant way our understanding of early modern fortifications in the eastern Mediterranean region and will spark further research on many of the Ottoman fortifications built in the area. Plans and elevations of the fortresses are published and analysed here for the first time. Based on archival research, including letters written by the queen mother, many of which are published here for the first time, and archaeological fieldwork, her work is also informed by recent theoretical debates in the fields of art history, cultural history and gender studies.

Download or read book Empress of the East written by Leslie Peirce and published by Icon Books. This book was released on 2018-09-06 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abducted by slave traders from her home in Ruthenia - modern-day Ukraine - around 1515, Roxelana was brought to Istanbul and trained in the palace harem as a concubine for Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, ruler of the Ottoman Empire and one of the world's most powerful men. Suleyman became besotted with Roxelana and foreswore all other concubines, freeing and marrying her. The bold and canny Roxelana became a shrewd diplomat and philanthropist, helping Suleyman keep pace with a changing world in which women - Isabella of Hungary, Catherine de Medici - were increasingly close to power. Until now Roxelana has been seen by historians as a seductress who brought ruin to the empire, but in Empress of the East, acclaimed historian Leslie Peirce reveals with panache the compelling story of an elusive woman who transformed the Ottoman harem into an institution of imperial rule.

Download or read book Istanbul written by Bettany Hughes and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 709 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Istanbul has long been a place where stories and histories collide, where perception is as potent as fact. From the Koran to Shakespeare, this city with three names--Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul -- resonates as an idea and a place, real and imagined. Standing as the gateway between East and West, North and South, it has been the capital city of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. For much of its history it was the very center of the world, known simply as "The City," but, as Bettany Hughes reveals, Istanbul is not just a city, but a global story. In this epic new biography, Hughes takes us on a dazzling historical journey from the Neolithic to the present, through the many incarnations of one of the world's greatest cities--exploring the ways that Istanbul's influence has spun out to shape the wider world. Hughes investigates what it takes to make a city and tells the story not just of emperors, viziers, caliphs, and sultans, but of the poor and the voiceless, of the women and men whose aspirations and dreams have continuously reinvented Istanbul. Written with energy and animation, award-winning historian Bettany Hughes deftly guides readers through Istanbul's rich layers of history. Based on meticulous research and new archaeological evidence, this captivating portrait of the momentous life of Istanbul is visceral, immediate, and authoritative -- narrative history at its finest.

Download or read book Power Espionage and Corruption in the Sixteenth Century written by Liviu Pilat and published by . This book was released on 2019-12-31 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Advancing beyond the traditional perspective of political history and its interest in the relations between states, this book presents a history of power that focuses on individual political agency, espionage, and corruption. Situated on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire, Moldavia represents a frontier society, a meeting place of Western and Eastern influences, and a space of indirect confrontation between the Ottomans and the Habsburgs. Moldavia also experienced negotiations, intrigues, and espionage that affected events in Russia, Spain, and England.

Download or read book The Mapmaker s Daughter written by Laurel Corona and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2014-03-04 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Vividly detailed and beautifully written, this is a pleasure to read, a thoughtful, deeply engaging story of the power of faith to navigate history's rough terrain."—Booklist How Far Would You Go To Stay True to Yourself? Spain, 1492. On the eve of the Jewish expulsion from Spain, Amalia Riba stands at a crossroads. In a country violently divided by religion, she must either convert to Christianity and stay safe, or remain a Jew and risk everything. It's a choice she's been walking toward her whole life, from the days of her youth when her family lit the Shabbat candles in secret. Back then, she saw the vast possibility of the world, outlined in the beautiful pen and ink maps her father created. But the world has shifted and contracted since then. The Mapmaker's Daughter is a stirring novel about identity, exile, and what it means to be home. "A close look at the great costs and greater rewards of being true to who you really are. A lyrical journey to the time when the Jews of Spain were faced with the wrenching choice of deciding their future as Jews—a pivotal period of history and inspiration today."—Margaret George, New York Times bestselling author of Elizabeth I "The many twists and turns in the life of the mapmaker's daughter, Amalia, mirror the tenuous and harrowing journey of the Jewish community in fifteenth-century Iberia, showing how family and faith overcame even the worst the Inquisition could inflict on them."—Anne Easter Smith, author of Royal Mistress and A Rose for the Crown "A powerful love story ignites these pages, making the reader yearn for more as they come to know Amalia and Jamil, two of the most compelling characters in recent historical fiction. An absolute must-read!"—Michelle Moran, author of The Second Empress and Madam Tussaud

Download or read book Empress of the East written by Leslie Peirce and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "fascinating . . . lively" story of the Russian slave girl Roxelana, who rose from concubine to become the only queen of the Ottoman empire (New York Times). In Empress of the East, historian Leslie Peirce tells the remarkable story of a Christian slave girl, Roxelana, who was abducted by slave traders from her Ruthenian homeland and brought to the harem of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent in Istanbul. Suleyman became besotted with her and foreswore all other concubines. Then, in an unprecedented step, he freed her and married her. The bold and canny Roxelana soon became a shrewd diplomat and philanthropist, who helped Suleyman keep pace with a changing world in which women, from Isabella of Hungary to Catherine de Medici, increasingly held the reins of power. Until now Roxelana has been seen as a seductress who brought ruin to the empire, but in Empress of the East, Peirce reveals the true history of an elusive figure who transformed the Ottoman harem into an institution of imperial rule.