Learning outcomes: With the successful completion of the course, students will
• familiarize themselves with the main theoretical approaches to the historical study and analysis of the “crisis of the 17th century”
• acquire new knowledge about the social and economic history of early modern Europe and the Ottoman Empire
• gain an in-depth understanding of the processes leading to the transformation of the Ottoman state and its societies
• study in depth particular aspects of the seventeenth-century crisis and its impact (in the course of writing the essay).
General Competences: Knowledge, understanding and critical review of
• historical developments in governance, society, economy and ideas
• social and cultural developments and mentality shifts that shaped the modern world
• uses of the past in the present
• Greek history within its broader contexts.
Production of free, creative and inductive thinking.
Working independently.
The 17th century was a time of generalized crisis, manifested in demographic decline, economic hardship, social unrest, political conflicts and harsh wars. In the Ottoman Empire – as in the rest of Europe, although in a different way – the so-called “crisis of the 17th century” ushered large-scale transformation of institutions, socio-economic structures and power relations, as well as inter-community relations. The course examines the fields of manifestation of the crisis in the Ottoman world, as well as the institutional and socio-economic changes that led to the transformation of the Ottoman Empire and its societies.
Thematic units:
- The world in the 17th century
- The historiography of the seventeenth-century crisis
- Climate Change and crisis
- The Ottoman Empire
- The Ottoman 17th century: from decline to crisis
- Rebellions in the imperial center
- The Celali revolts and their aftermath
- The Great Church in crisis
- Fundamentalism and messianism
- Religion, ideology and governance
- Institutional and socio-economic transformations
Suggested bibliography:
1. Abou El-Haj, Rifa’at, Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, Ώλμπανυ: SUNY University Press, 1991.
2. Baer, Marc David, Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe, Οξφόρδη: Oxford University Press, 2008.
3. Faroqhi, Suraiya, (επιμ.), The Cambridge History of Turkey, τόμ. 3: The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839, Καίμπριτζ: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
4. İnalcık, Halil, “Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600-1700”, Archivum Ottomanicum 6 (1980), 283-337.
5. İnalcık, Halil, και Donald Quataert (επιμ.), Οικονομική και κοινωνική ιστορία της Οθωμανικής Αυτοκρατορίας, τ. Β΄: 1600-1914, μτφρ. Μ. Δημητριάδου, Αθήνα: Αλεξάνδρεια, 2011.
6. Κουτζακιώτης, Γιώργος, Αναμένοντας το τέλος του κόσμου τον 17ο αιώνα: Ο εβραίος μεσσίας και ο μέγας διερμηνέας, Αθήνα: Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών, 2011.
7. McGowan, Bruce, Economic Life in Ottoman Europe: Taxation, Trade and the Struggle for Land, 1600-1800, Καίμπριτζ: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
8. Parker, Geoffrey, Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century, Νιού Χέιβεν – Λονδίνο: Yale University Press, 2013.
9. Tezcan, Baki, The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World, Καίμπριτζ: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
10. White, Sam, The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, Καίμπριτζ: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
– Related academic journals:
- Comparative Studies in Society and History
- International Journal of Middle East Studies
- Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient
- Past & Present
