Late Ottoman Society: The Intellectual Legacy ed. Elisabeth Özdalga (review)

Book Reviews 239 coup—pulls the reader abruptly out of the fifteenth century, rather disruptively and yet not without pleasure, just as it does for the narrator himself. In fact, the narrator uses these chapters to recount his struggles in approaching his novel, indeed his struggles to write period. His trials will resonate with readers who have undergone similar experiences struggling to write while living in Istanbul. And then there is another struggle: “But as long as I wrote, I moved away from today, and I sunk into the darkest part of the city. . . My mind was under occupation . . . I was living in the past time of Istanbul” (p. 62). Many an Ottomanist may relate to that surprising sense of separation that intensive historical research and writing can engender. On a lighter note, those who have lived in the city for a period will appreciate the evocations of the Bosphorus, particularly on a fine morning, and of the cleansing effect one experiences while sailing on it, no matter how many times one has done so. The novel teems with historical allusions to people and places and practices and events that the casual reader will not know, even with the (minimal) glossary’s help. “The state would break off the custom of Oğuz . . .” (p. 38) goes unexplained, for example. Nor is “red apple / Kızılelma” defined for the uninitiated. Perhaps one need not do so, but if not then even more clearly the book will appeal not so much to the general reader as to the Ottomanist cognoscenti. Typos bedevil the text: citidel, deapth, discus (instead of discuss), tork (instead of stork), Hali (instead of Halil), among numerous examples. The English sags here and there: “and in eighth verse” misses the definite article; surely “sank” outranks “sunk” as flawless past tense; one takes revenge “on” someone in English, not “from” someone as in Turkish; and “it was me who was unreal” may pass these days, but surely the correct “it was I” offends fewer ears. Douglas Brookes University of California, Berkeley Özdalga, Elisabeth, ed. Late Ottoman Society: The Intellectual Legacy. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005. Xvii + 348 pp. Cloth, $180: ISBN 9780415341646. Publication of collected essays is not a thriving industry. No strong incentive exists to conceive an edited book and carry it to publication. Increasingly more market-driven presses shun collected essays that purportedly have a more limited readership than monographs. Meanwhile, academic institutions are stingy in promotion reviews with conferring credit to edited books or to unrefereed articles. Yet, conferences do take place, scholars’ research does intersect, and minds do meet in diverse ways to make a collected essays project intellectually stimulating and worthy of pursuing against the odds. Authors and editors have to demonstrate the cohesion of the individual chapters, make a case for the strength of the whole book as well as of its constituent parts, and produce conceptual introductions and JOTSA 1:1-2 (2014) 240 conclusions to make their case, as publishers remain leery that a bunch of papers presented at a conference may land on their desk with fancy packaging. Often editorial assistants in university presses send the standard rejection letter to aspiring editors. Against this reality in the academic publishing business, Late Ottoman Society might seem like an odd book to see the light of the day. The subject matter is broad: the intellectual history of the late Ottoman Empire and the implications of this history for the post-Ottoman period. “Intellectual” is an all-encompassing rubric including history of ideas, ideological movements, education, religious intellectuals, lay intellectuals, publishing, etc. “Legacy” is a central theme in a couple of articles, receives a nod in some, and is not an explicit concern in others. The essays are disparate in many respects, even as Elisabeth Özdalga’s skilled introduction makes a valiant effort to establish the connections under the rubrics of “authoritarianism and westernization,” “a divided middle class,” and the somewhat less explanatory “banned ulema.” Yet, this is a compelling and valuable book thanks to the substantive merits of its individual components. It is gratifying that Routledge saw this and produced an exciting contribution to late Ottoman studies. The author list is...