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.
1. The world in the 17th century
The 17th century in the historiography
2. The “general crisis” of the 17th century
3. The multiple crises of the Ottoman long 17th century
4. Decline or transformation?
Aspects of the crisis
5. A demographic catastrophe?
6. Economic recession and financial crisis
7. Political crises in the imperial centre
8. Robbery and rebellion
9. Fundamentalism and messianism
Transformations
10. Emergence of a “second empire”
11. Piety and governance
12. Decentralization processes
13. Tax reforms and their outcomes
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.
