Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347–1600

by Nükhet Varlik

This is the first systematic scholarly study of the Ottoman experience of plague during the Black Death pandemic and the centuries that followed. Using a wealth of archival and narrative sources, including medical treatises, hagiographies and travellers' accounts, as well as recent scientific research, Nükhet Varlik demonstrates how plague interacted with the environmental, social, and political structures of the Ottoman Empire from the late medieval through the early modern era. The book argues that the empire's growth transformed the epidemiological patterns of plague by bringing diverse ecological zones into interaction and by intensifying the mobilities of exchange among both human and non-human agents. Varlik maintains that persistent plagues elicited new forms of cultural imagination and expression, as well as a new body of knowledge about the disease. In turn, this new consciousness sharpened the Ottoman administrative response to the plague, while contributing to the makings of an early modern state.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 22, 2015

Reviews

[Hilmi Uysal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Çok ilginç bilgilerle dolu harikulade bir kitap.
Covid-19 virüs pandemisinin devam ettiği günleri yaşıyor olmamızın getirdiği fazladan bir merakla bu kitaba sarıldım.
Bakteriler ve virüsler hususunda insanların geçmişteki büyük cehaletini ve geçmiş asırlardaki büyük salgınlar karşısındaki çaresizliği düşündüren bir okumaydı. Mikrorganizmalar ve tıp tarihi bilgilerimin ışığında bir çeşit zafer duygusu ve gurur hisleriyle de doldum. Modern tıp sayesinde insanlar daha güçlü.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely for scholars rather than the general public but what a feat of scholarship.

[Hassan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book does what it intends to do and does it well.