Prisons in the Late Ottoman Empire: Microcosms of Modernity by Kent F. Schull (review)

Book Reviews 379 3DFL¿FWRREVHUYHWKHWUDQVLWRI9HQXVZKLOHDWWKHVDPHWLPHWKHYL]LHUV LQ,VWDQEXOGLVPLVVHGDVLPSRVVLEOHUHSRUWVWKDWD5XVVLDQÀHHWZDVVDLOLQJ from the Baltic to the Mediterranean. This observation, to my mind, neatly encapsulates the difference between East and West (“West” in this case including Russia), and suggests that the superiority of the West, in naval and other R R PDWWHUVOD\LQ³WKH(XURSHDQVFLHQWL¿FUHYROXWLRQ´DQGWKHDSSOLFDWLRQRILWV principles and new ways of thinking to—among many other things—maritime matters and geography. The idea of an Ottoman “decline” has recently come under attack, with some historians, as Profesor Soucek notes, “virtually banishing this term and replacing it with such words as ‘readjustment.’” His book, however, shows convincingly that in the maritime sphere the “decline” —or at least failure to “rise” in line with an increasingly dominant West—was indeed real. Furthermore, his narrative and careful marshalling of the facts provides the evidence. Colin Imber University of Manchester doi:10.2979/jottturstuass.3.2.10 Kent F. Schull. Prisons in the Late Ottoman Empire: Microcosms of Modernity. y y Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014. 240 pp. Cloth, £70. ISBN: 978-0748641734. Prisons are some of the most understudied areas in Middle East politics. By focusing on the situation of prisons in the late Ottoman Empire, Kent F. Schull’s UHPDUNDEOHERRN¿OOVDJDSLQJKROHLQVFKRODUVKLS,WSUHVHQWVDFDUHIXODQDO\sis of Ottoman prisons and the nineteenth and early twentieth-century attempts to reform them, while arguing how revamping the criminal justice system and refashioning the spaces of imprisonment were integral to the efforts to transform the Ottoman state as well as the hopes to save it from further decline and disintegration. This book will become indispensible reading not only for those interested in late Ottoman statecraft but also for scholars of the contemporary Middle East who want to understand the historical background of the criminal justice systems and penal institutions in the region. Two reports constitute the bookends of T T Schull’s work: the 1851 report by British Ambassador Stratford Canning opens the book; the 1918 report by Commander Heathcote-Smith and Lieutenant Palmer, together with Husni Bey, the Head of the Ottoman Directorate of Public Safety, brings it to a FORVH%RWKUHSRUWVGHWDLOWKHDSSDOOLQJFRQGLWLRQVRIFRQ¿QHPHQWLQQRXQFHUtain terms. However, Schull maintains, the similarity between these reports, which contain their own dose of orientalist contempt toward the Ottomans, 380 Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, Vol. 3.2 should not be interpreted to imply the absence of efforts to improve prison conditions in the empire. To the contrary, this book painstakingly depicts the T T ambitious plans adopted by the Ottoman state for extensive criminal justice reform in the intervening decades. Not all of these reforms were carried out consistently and continuously, nor did the reforms carried out always succeed. 1RQHWKHOHVV6FKXOOLQVLVWVWKHVHUHIRUPVZHUHDVLJQL¿FDQWFRPSRQHQWRIWKH ongoing process of constructing a centralized and rationalized modern state and the establishment of governmental control over different facets of the lives of those under its rule. As such, they should be interpreted not as the result of Westernization, Schull claims, but as “windows” into Ottoman modernity, or WKHVSHFL¿FZD\LQZKLFKHIIRUWVRIPRGHUQL]DWLRQZHUHFDUULHGRXWLQWKHODWH empire by adapting existing legal and political structures rather than adopting them from the West. This is the strongest claim of the book; however, it would KDYHEHQH¿WHGIURPDPRUHVXEVWDQWLDOH[DPLQDWLRQRIWKHUROHDQGH[WHQWRI Western pressure on reform efforts, on the one hand, and the question of the VSHFL¿FLW\RI2WWRPDQPRGHUQLW\YLVjYLVLWV:HVWHUQFRXQWHUSDUWV7KHERRN could have made a more compelling case for this claim if it had coupled it with a more rigorous discussion on different pathways to modernity and an evaluation of what role prisons play in state-building projects across these diverse pathways. That being said, the book does provide a rich history and does it with great H[SHUWLVH...