Monologue to Conversation: Comparative Approaches in Turkish Historiography

Abstract

Comparative studies developed late in the field of Ottoman and Turkish history and, when they did, that was due primarily to external influences: the impact of world system theory, the flowering of nationalism studies and the growth of empire studies that was triggered by the fall of the Soviet Union. The comparative methodologies employed have become progressively more sophisticated and because historians of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey are now increasingly asking “big” questions, they are able to use their empirical knowledge to contribute to broader debates and influence theoretical development.

Notes on contributor

Erik Jan Zürcher (Leiden, 1953) was awarded his PhD at Leiden University in 1984. He has taught at Nijmegen and Amsterdam Universities and been attached to the International Institute of Social History twice (1990–99 as senior research fellow and 2008–12 as general director). Since 1997 he has been full professor of Turkish Studies at Leiden University. He has been a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2008 and affiliate professor in Stockholm University since 2013. He has written or edited 11 books, mostly on Turkey in the twentieth century. His Turkey: A Modern History has been translated into eight languages.

Notes

1. Ward and Rustow, Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey, v.

2. Ward and Rustow, op. cit., 434.

3. Ward and Rustow, op. cit., v.

4. Keyder, State and Class in Turkey, 1.

5. Quataert, Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age, 15–20.

6. Plaggenborg, Ordnung und Gewalt,21–68.

7. Barkey and von Hagen, After Empire, 182.

8. Brown, Imperial Legacy, 304.

9. Brown, op. cit., 6.

10. Leonhard and von Hirschhausen, Comparing Empires, 31.

11. http://www.nwo.nl/onderzoek-en-resultaten/onderzoeksprojecten/14/2300159314.html (9 May 2014).

12. For an example, see Keyder, op. cit., 7. The first six words of the first chapter of the book contain the statement “The Ottoman Empire was not feudal.” With it the author takes up a position in the—often heated—debates on the issue in Turkey at the time.