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The cover design of Karen Barkey's book, a bandit launching a spear (seemingly into the unknown) is emblematic of the work itself. Barkey's project is an ambitious if not an audacious one. It is both comparative and theoretical, two adjectives seldom associated with work on the Ottomans. Placing the Ottoman Empire in a world context of evolving agrarian empires, the author tests it against theoretical models of state formation, rural organization, and political bargaining developed by scholars working on Western European, Russian, or Chinese political and social formations. Barkey combines the theoretical modeling of the social scientific approach with documentary materials drawn from Ottoman archives in Istanbul and Manisa, i.e., muhimme (important affairs registers), umar ruznamce (military fief daybooks), and kadi sicilleri (court records).
The work is composed of an introduction, conclusion, five intermediary content chapters and two appendices (describing respectively the provinces of Aydin and Saruhan upon which much of the discussion is centered, and the registers that provide supplementary evidence for this study). Chapter 1 lays out Barkey's analytical paradigm. Chapter 2 sets the stage in time and in space, discussing the organization of the Ottoman Empire and interpretations of the "crisis" of the 17th century. Chapters 3 and 4 attempt to analyze respectively the Ottoman regional elites (umar holders and governors) and the Ottoman peasants, in the context of analytical models developed for other areas of the world (especially France and China). The real meat of Barkey's argument lies in Chapter 5, which discusses the creation and "social type" of Ottoman bandits (organized armed bands of men who preyed on the countryside), and Chapter 6, which analyzes the negotiations that went on between the state and the bandits.
Barkey's main thesis, employing Charles Tilly's...