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PRE-20TH CENTURY HISTORY A Social History of Ottoman Istanbul, by Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. xxi + 331 pages. Bibl. to p. 343. Index to p. 354. $33.99.
It is rare to find a scholarly book so captivating and engagingly written that it is hard to put it down; this is the case with Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet's A Social History of Istanbul. In spite of the maturity of the field of Ottoman social history and Istanbul's significance as imperial capital, this is one of the first monographs to examine the topic thoroughly.1
The authors do not assume that their readers are familiar with Ottoman history. Accordingly, the book opens with a chronology, several maps, a who's who, and a brief, basic outline. The first chapter begins with the Latins' and Byzantines' reaction to the Ottoman conquest of 1453 and also sets the tone for the remainder of the book: the authors heavily rely throughout upon primary sources - official histories, archival documents, travel accounts, and Ottoman literature - to convey developments and events through the voice of contemporary observers. Arguing that the empire was not merely a war machine, Fleet and Boyar point to textual evidence revealing the early Ottomans' attention to economy and Istanbul's...