Carter Vaughn Findley – författare

A new, comprehensive history of the Ottoman Empire from its beginnings in 1300 to its dissolution in 1922 written by North America's leading expert in the field.The Ottoman Empire was one of the mightiest empires in world history, ruling parts of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa for more than six hundred years. At its height in the sixteenth century, it was more formidable militarily, better financed, more highly centralized, and more efficiently ruled than any rival power. For centuries, the sultans who governed it were the most powerful and prestigious "defenders of Islam." At the same time, this Islamic empire accommodated religious diversity in a way Europe's Christian powers would not. Encompassing politics and war, economics and society, culture and religion, Dreams of Empire shows how across the centuries, the Ottoman state evolved from a ministate in the northwest corner of Anatolia (the Asian part of today's Turkish republic) to a world empire sovereign over lands stretching from Hungary to Iraq and Algeria. Subsequently, it experienced centuries of adversity, then recovery, then finally--although both diminished in size and buffeted by separatist nationalism in the Balkans and European imperialism in Asia and North Africa--a remarkable surge of reformist dynamism to fight for its survival. This reformist dynamism enabled the Turkish people to survive near destruction in World War I and re-emerge in the independent Turkish Republic. In addition to examining the state's central role in maintaining the empire, Carter Findley explores the prodigiously diverse communities residing in its sprawling lands, including nomadic tribes, settled agrarian communities, and religious groups of all sizes and types, including Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Charismatic Sufis, warriors for Islam, merchants in Cairo, compulsive travelers, a would-be Jewish messiah, revolutionaries, and pioneering women novelists all inhabit these pages.Incorporating a wealth of scholarship, primary sources, maps, and plentiful illustrations in both color and black and white, Dreams of Empire masterfully depicts both great issues and human stories of women and men whose deeds and misdeeds helped shape the epic history of this long-lasting, cosmopolitan empire.

In this sequel to his highly acclaimed Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire, Carter Findley shifts focus from the organizational aspects of administrative reform and development to the officials themselves. A study in social history and its cultural and economic ramifications, Findley's new book critically reassesses Ottoman accomplishments and failures in turning an archaic scribal corps into an effective civil service. Combining scrutiny of well-documented individuals with analyses of large groups of officials, Findley considers how much the development of civil officialdom benefited Ottoman efforts to revitalize the state and protect its interests in an increasingly competitive world. Did reformers' initiatives in elite formation significantly broaden the social bases of officialdom and its capacity to represent Ottoman society? Did prospective officials profit from educational reform so as to achieve higher levels of qualification over the generations? How did cultural tensions of the reform era affect civil officials? To what extent did impersonal procedure and new ideas of professionalism supplant patronage and old scribal role concepts?How well did the state succeed in rewarding good service and protecting its officials against shifting economic conditions? The answers to such questions illuminate major issues of social integration and cultural change and clarify links between economic conditions and changing forms of political activism. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.