BOOK REVIEW DISCUSSION - EMPIRE OF DIFFERENCE - WHY DID THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE LAST SO LONG?

Описание: Islamic Courses presents:

BOOK REVIEW DISCUSSION - BOOK REVIEW DISCUSSION: EMPIRE OF DIFFERENCE - WHY DID THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE LAST SO LONG?

With author Professor Karen Barkey [The University of California, Berkeley, USA]

and hosted by Dr Yakoob Ahmed [Young Ottomans Foundation - theyoungottomans.com]

Date and time: Friday 19th February 2021 @6pm UK/London

ABOUT: Her work Empire of Difference was a comparative study of the flexibility and longevity of imperial systems. In different chapters, the book explored the key organizational and state society related dynamics of imperial longevity. In contrast to a Gibsonian concern with imperial rise and decline, a common feature of conventional analyses, this book demonstrated that the flexible techniques by which the Ottomans maintained their legitimacy, the cooperation of their diverse elites both at the center and in the provinces, as well as the control over the economic and human resources were responsible for the longevity of this particular “negotiated empire.” In the process, it explores important issues such as diversity, the role of religion in politics, Islam and the state as well as the manner in which the Sunni-Shi’a divide operated during the tenure of the Ottoman Empire. Such topics are relevant to the contemporary setting and the conflicts we endure today.


Speaker/Presenters: Professor Karen Barkey [The University of California, Berkeley, USA]

Karen Barkey is faculty in Sociology with expertise in Comparative Historical Sociology, Political Sociology and Religion. Karen Barkey is the Haas Distinguished Chair of Religious Diversity at the Othering & Belonging Institute and
Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. She is also currently the Director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR). Her main area of interest at this stage is in issues of coexistence and diversity in imperial settings as models for contemporary discussions. Karen Barkey has been engaged in the comparative and historical study of the state, with special focus on its transformation over time. Her main project is on Shared Sacred Sites. She has focused on state society relations, peasant movements, banditry, opposition and dissent organized around the state. Her main empirical site has been the Ottoman Empire, in comparison with France, the Habsburg, and the Russian Empires. She also pays attention to the Roman and Byzantine worlds as important predecessors of the Ottomans. She has worked in the Ottoman archives in Istanbul (Topkapı and Başbakanlık) as well as in Manisa. For more information: https://sociology.berkeley.edu/facult...

Reviews of the book:

'… a book that is notable for influencing the present trend in Ottoman studies through its aims at reconsidering the roots of the Ottoman state-building process … exhibits a new step in [Barkey's] research on the very nature of the Ottoman Empire …' Nora Lafi, Comparativ