Is it possible to generate "capitalist spirit" in a society, where cultural, economic and political conditions did not unfold into an industrial revolution, and consequently into an advanced industrial-capitalist formation? This is exactly what some prominent public intellectuals in the late Ottoman Empire tried to achieve as a developmental strategy; long before Max Weber defined the notion of capitalist spirit as the main motive behind the development of capitalism. This book demonstrates how and why Ottoman reformists adapted (English and French) economic theory to the Ottoman institutional setting and popularized it to cultivate bourgeois values in the public sphere as a developmental strategy. It also reveals the imminent results of these efforts by presenting examples of how bourgeois values permeated into all spheres of socio-cultural life, from family life to literature, in the late Ottoman Empire. The text examines how the interplay between Western European economic theories and the traditional Muslim economic cultural setting paved the way for a new synthesis of a Muslim-capitalist value system; shedding light on the emergence of capitalism—as a cultural and an economic system—and the social transformation it created in a non-Western, and more specifically, in the Muslim Middle Eastern institutional setting. This book will be of great interest to scholars of modern Middle Eastern history, economic history, and the history of economic thought.

New perspectives on the Ottoman Empire, challenging Western stereotypes.

Originally published in 1987, this book examines the consequences of the nineteenth-century economic penetration of Europe into the Ottoman Empire. Professor Pamuk makes subtle use of a very wide range of sources encompassing the statistics of most of the European countries and Ottoman records not previously tapped for this purpose. His economic and quantitative analysis established the long-term trends of Ottoman foreign trade and European investment in the Empire. The later chapters focus on the commercialisation of agriculture and the decline as well as the resistance of handicrafts. Geographically, most of the volume focuses on the area within the 1911 borders of the Empire - Turkey, northern Greece, Greater Syria and Iraq. Professor Pamuk compares the relationship of the Ottoman Empire to the world economy with that of other parts of the non-European world and concludes that the two distinguishing features of the Ottoman case were the environment of Great Power rivalry and the ability of the government to react against European pressures.

The Ottoman Empire went through rapid economic and social development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as it approached its end. Profound changes took place in its European territories, particularly and prominently in Macedonia. In the decades before the First World War, industrial capitalism began to emerge in Ottoman Macedonia and its impact was felt across society. The port city of Salonica was at the epicentre of this transformation, led by its Jewish community. But the most remarkable site of development was found deep in provincial Macedonia, where industrial capitalism sprang from domestic sources in spite of unfavourable conditions. Ottoman Greek traders and industrialists from the region of Mount Vermion helped shape the economic trajectory of 'Turkey in Europe', and competed successfully against Jewish capitalists from Salonica. The story of Ottoman Macedonian capitalism was nearly forgotten in the century that followed the demise of the Empire. This book pieces it together by unearthing Ottoman archival materials combined with Greek sources and field research. It offers a fresh perspective on late Ottoman economic history and will be an invaluable resource for scholars of Ottoman, Greek and Turkish history. Published in Association with the British Institute at Ankara

A painstaking study of Ottoman records, providing analyses of the economic, fiscal and demographic situation.

Examines the social and economic history of one of the major empires of modern times.