Outline of the February 28th Lecture / D. Terzioğlu

Ottoman Conquest and Expansion

1. General remarks

The need to examine Ottoman expansion as a part of a global history of expansion and exploration – parallels as well as differences with the Spanish episode
What the paradigm of European exploration/Ottoman warfare hides: the cultural and intellectual repercussions of Ottoman expansion.

2. Frontier warfare, 1300-1453

Frontier/borderlands: Social, political, economic and cultural characteristics
Early Ottomans and the gaza ethos. -- In the frontier context, it was perfectly possible for self-professed gazis to ally with with Christians or to fight against other Muslims.
Early Ottoman military performance. -- Raiders. Gradual mastery of siege and field battle tactics. Turning point: mid 14th c.
Growth of a regular Ottoman army
Timarlı cavalry
Janissary/Yeni Çeri army
Adoption and institutionalization of gunpowder

3. The growth of Ottoman imperial power, 1453-1580

A brief overview:

The conquest of Constantinople as a turning point: creation of a unitary empire in Anatolia and the Balkans
Consolidation under Bayezid II
Acceleration of expansion during the reign of Selim I (1512-1520) and the early years of the reign of Süleyman I (1520-1566)

Spheres of Ottoman military operations

Mediterranean (main rivals: Venice in the East; Habsburgs in the West)
C. Europe (main rival: Habsburgs; contention over Hungary)
Islamic “heartlands” (main rival: Safavids in Iran; contend over Iraq, Persian Gulf; defeat of Mamluks and conquest of Egypt, Syria and Hijaz)
Indian Ocean (main rival: Portuguese)

Growth of Ottoman naval power

Early Ottoman shipping: Gallipoli

New incentives for developing a navy
Capture of Constantinople/Istanbul
Capture of Egypt
The submission of the Turkish corsair and governor of Algiers, Barbaros Hayreddin Paşa and the acquisition of several coastal cities in N. Africa

A Mediterranean power: the effectiveness of Ottoman shipping techniques reassessed
Cf. Venice in the Mediterranean
Cf. Portuguese in the Indian Ocean

Ottoman involvement in the Indian Ocean, 1517-1589
The Egyption factor: Safeguarding the old trade routes through the Red Sea (and later the Persian Gulf)
Ottoman strategies against the Portuguese
Sokullu Mehmed Paşa and his “soft empire”

4. Cultural ramifications

Relationship between the growth of Ottoman imperial power and the creation of an Ottoman imperial identity
A regional identity: Ottomans and Rumi-ness
Emphasis on universalism:
Byzantine/Roman legacy
Islamic universalism – the titles of “the servant of the two holy sanctuaries” (khadim al-haramayn al-sharifayn) and “caliph” (halife)

The Ottoman discovery of the world: growth of Ottoman geographical literature
Piri Reis – Seydi Ali Reis – Tarih-i Hind-i Garbi

Outline of the February 23, Lecture / Y. Terzibasoglu

European Expansion in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans (15th – 17th centuries)

- The birth of the world economy

- Construction of markets: political and economic

- Conquest of the Americas by the Spanish and the Portuguese

- Local trading networks (regulated by Aztec and Mayan empires) replaced by the Atlantic trade (regulated by Spanish and Portuguese crowns)

- Differences between Spanish and Portuguese expansion

- Portuguese in Africa and the Indian Ocean in the 15th century: establishment of commercial bases and a trading network

- Spanish in America: establishment of an empire

- Demographic collapse and slavery, establishment of a plantation economy

- Emergence of new political and economic structures in Latin America

- Flow of silver: a mixed blessing for Europe

- Reasons for the decline of Spanish and Portuguese power

- The rise of the Dutch: domestic conditions in the Low Countries, the struggle between merchants and crafts guilds, and between town and countryside.

P.S. Classes

On Fridays

Slot 1 KPARK6
Slot 2 KPARK2
Slot 2 KPARK6
Slot 3 KPARK11
Slot 5 KPARK3
Slot 5 KPARK4
Slot 5 KPARK10
Slot 6 KPARK3
Slot 6 KPARK4

Boğaziçi University
Department of History
Spring 2007

Hist 106 – Making of the Modern World II



Coordinator:
Yücel Terzibaşoğlu

Teaching Assistants:
Zeynep Cebeci
Kutluğhan Soyubol
Merve Tezcanlı

Ayşe Tek Başaran
Feray Coşkun
Rezzan Karaman


Lectures: MWF 4 (GKM)
Office Hours: TBA
Discussion Sessions: Fridays
Website: hist106.blogspot.com

Course Description


Making of the Modern World (Hist 105 and 106) is a two-semester elective course offered by the History Department. It provides a thematic history of the world from the ancient to the modern times. One of the major aims of the course is to develop the sensitivity among first year students that history is about change: How societies, political systems, cultural practices, and our understanding of the world changed through time, and how changes in the past conditioned, and continue to condition, our present. The second part of the course (Hist 106) employs a global and universal perspective to explore the paths of specific historical change in the early modern and modern periods in different regions of the world.

Therefore it is as much about the Renaissance and Reformation in Europe as culture and society in the early modern Middle East; as much about European feudalism as about the methods of rule of Chinese and Japanese bureaucratic power; much about the revolutions of 1789 and 1848 in Europe as about the transformation of Ottoman political power in relation to the Habsburg and Russian empires, and revolutions in Latin America. It is concerned not only with conventional political history of kings and queens and sultans, but more fundamentally about how ordinary people lived, what their material conditions were, what they thought and did.


Format

There will be three one-hour lectures every week followed by discussion hours on Fridays. It is essential that you participate fully to the course by attending the lectures, doing your readings and directing questions and discussing lecture topics. On Friday afternoons a number of films will be shown, which will be an integral part of the course. There is not one set textbook for the course. The following two books are mostly for background reading and introduction to the subject, and complement the lectures, rather than reproduce them. You can find copies of the books in the reserve section of the library. It is therefore essential that you come to the lectures having read the relevant material. Extra readings will be provided during the course when necessary.

Stearns, Peter N. et.al. World Civilizations: The Global Experience, Pearson Longman, 2007.

Bayly, C.A. The Birth of the Modern World, 1780-1914, Blackwell, 2005.


Assessment

Mid-term exam 45%
Final exam 45%
Participation 10%

Program and Preliminary Reading List:

1. Introduction 19 February M Terzibaşoğlu

A.) Discoveries and Expansion

Reading: Stearns chpts. 21, 24, 26, 27

2. Early Expeditions and Asian Trade 21 February W Esenbel

3. European Expansion in the Atlantic
and Indian Oceans 23 February F Terzibaşoğlu

4. Ottoman Conquest and Expansion 26 February M Terzioğlu

B.) Religion, Culture and Society in the Early Modern Era

Reading: Stearns, chpts. 20, 22

5. Renaissance in Italy and
Northern Europe 28 February W Girardelli

6. Reformation and Counter Reformation:
Change in Religious Culture 2 March F Babaoğlu

Film: Florence

7. Reformation and Society 5 March M Babaoğlu

8. Culture and Society in the
Early Modern Near East 7 March W Kafescioğlu

C.) Early Modern States and the Evolution of Absolutism

Reading: Stearns, chpts. 22, 26, 27; Bayly chpt, 1

9. The Power of the Prince 9 March F Kafescioğlu

10. Ottoman, Mughal and
Safavid Rulers 12 March M Toksöz

11. The Ming Bureaucratic Empire in China and
Tokugawa Centralised Feudal
Order in Japan 14 March W Esenbel

12. Absolutism at its Peak:
Louis XIV 16 March F Terzioğlu

Film: Merchant of Venice

13. Absolutism Challenged:
The English Revolution 19 March M Terzioğlu

D.) Age of Capitalism

Reading: Stearns, chpts. 22, 28, 29; Bayly, chpt. 2

14. From a Society of Orders
to a Society of Classes 21 March W Eldem

15. Innovation and Institutional
Change 23 March F Eldem

16. Diverging Paths:
Mercantilism versus Free Trade 26 March M Terzibaşoğlu

E.) Reason and Revolution

Reading: Stearns, chpt. 28; Bayly, chpt. 3

17. Scientific Revolution:
from the Renaissance to Newton 28 March W Danışman

18. The Enlightenment:
Man as an Object of Science 30 March F Deringil

19. An Enlightenment Experiment:
the American Revolutions 2 April M Mazzari

20. Destroying the Ancien Régime:
the French Revolution 4 April W Deringil

21. The Industrial Revolution 6 April F Karakışla

Film: Danton

F.) State, Nation and Progress

Reading: Stearns, chpts. 28, 31; Bayly, chpts. 4, 5

22. Old Empires, the Struggle for Survival:
Romanovs, Ottomans,
and Habsburgs 9 April M Terzibaşoğlu

23. Towards a Europe of Nations 11 April W Kechriotis

24. Latecomers: Bismarck and Garibaldi 13 April F Eldem

MID-TERM EXAM 16 April M 17.00

25. The Cult of Progress 18 April W Ersoy

26. Society Transformed: Peasants,
Workers, Consumers
and Capitalists 20 April F Deringil

27. The Triumphant Bourgeoisie 25 April W Türe

G.) Imperialism, Reform and Resistance

Reading: Stearns, chpts. 27, 29, 30, 31, 32; Bayly, chpts. 6, 7

28. Colonialism and Imperialism:
A Project of European
World Domination 27 April F Ersoy

SPRING BREAK (30 April – 4 May)

29. Reform as Resistance:
Meiji Modernity and Asian Empire 7 May M Esenbel

30. Reform as Resistance:
19th-Century Ottoman
Transformation 9 May W Terzibaşoğlu

31. Imperialism in South Asia:
The British Raj 11 May F Toksöz

32. Resistance and Revolution in
Latin America 14 May M Mazzari

H.) Modernity, Revolution and War

Reading: Stearns, chpts. 31, 32, 33, 34, Bayly, chpts. 11, 13

33. Revolution in Asia and Nationalism 16 May W Esenbel

34. Nations and Nationalism:
Turn of the Twentieth Century 18 May F Kechriotis

Film: All Quiet on the Western Front

35. The Great War 21 May M Deringil

36. The Russian Revolution 23 May W Karaömerlioğlu

37. Conclusion: The End of Empires 25 May F Eldem