The Collapse of Rural Order in Ottoman Anatolia: Amasya, 1576–1643 by Oktay Özel (review)

Book Reviews Oktay Özel. The Collapse of Rural Order in Ottoman Anatolia: Amasya, 1576–1643. Leiden: Brill, 2016. xii + 282 pp. Cloth, $149. ISBN: 978-9004309715. Özel’s new monograph is carefully documented and convincingly argued. Comparing demographic data from a 1576 tapu tahrir defter of Amasya with a mufassal avarız register from 1643, Özel argues that Anatolia’s demographic catastrophe in the early seventeenth century, and perhaps, even the violence of the Celali rebellions, should be seen as the effect of population pressure and rural impoverishment prevailing in the sixteenth century. Largely corroborating arguments of other recent studies that chart the demise of an old Ottoman order and rise of a new one in the seventeenth century, Özel concludes that the collapse of rural order brought on by population pressure marked the end of the çift-hane system in Anatolia as the land fell under the control of those left strong enough to claim it. If not revolutionary in its conclusions—the author modestly notes that in many ways he is simply extending the earlier analyses of Mustafa Akdağ and Michael Cook—the comprehensiveness with which the author addresses the topic is edifying and one feels that this book will put some questions to rest while encouraging new lines of inquiry. The study consists of six chapters, with the first and last chapters serving as introduction and conclusion. There are four lengthy appendices that explain the sources in greater narrative detail and which present comprehensive tables of the data. While chapter two provides helpful background for understanding the setting of Amasya and its particularities—the malikane-divanî fiscal arrangement, the impact of princely politics, etc.—the heart of the argument is contained in chapters three and four, where the author analyzes the data gleaned from the two registers that are the core of the study. In the data from 1576, he finds that in every nahiye of Amasya, the number of landless peasants 404 Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, Vol. 4.2 was higher than the number of peasants who held any amount of land (p. 51). In villages with the highest population densities, peasants who did hold some land usually did not have enough to be classified as a full farm or çift. Özel is able to draw a direct correlation between these conditions of rampant landlessness and the ensuing depopulation of the later period: the villages with the most landless peasants would be the most depopulated villages in the 1643 register (p. 54). In line with previous studies, he also finds that bachelors constituted nearly half of the adult male population in 1576 (p. 116), giving further heft to the argument that Amasya was experiencing not just growth but “pressure” on its resources. In chapter five, Özel argues that the presence of this “surplus” population of landless and unmarried men supplied the retinues of Celalis and the ranks of the armed gangs of bandits that terrorized the countryside and drove much of the remaining peasantry from the villages. While he regards this population as the necessary condition for the “collapse of rural order” referenced in the title, he carefully examines the conjunctural effect of other aggravating factors, such as climate and politics. Clearly impressed with the arguments of Sam White’s The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, Özel nevertheless believes that poor weather and natural disaster played a supporting rather than starring role in the deteriorating situation of the countryside and contends that White himself might agree with this conclusion. While the global dimension of seventeenth-century crisis is invoked in the framing of the issues, the reader is largely left on her own to make the connections between Özel’s study and the broader literature on the topic; this reviewer would have liked to see a more explicit discussion of how the work is situated within this literature. The book has a great deal to recommend it. Özel’s clarity of style and argumentation is a credit both to the author and to the publisher. The same can be said for the quality of the many charts and tables that are found throughout the text. Chapter five’s...