This volume should become the standard work on the Ottoman Empire. It gives as complete a picture of life, commerce, diplomacy and ottoman bureaucracy as possible considering the relative unavailability of reliable sources for the empire. It brings together intra-empire, inter-continental and international trade as it changed over the centuries in this one volume, an achievement not mirrored in very many other histories of the period.

The effects of wars (lots of these),governmental efficacy, ending monopoly of the Black Sea trade, the discovery of the New World and the Atlantic routes to East Asia and India are all discussed in a manner which makes not only Ottoman history, but also the rise and flourish of the rest of the subsequent colonial states easier to understand. Rather than focus on the Sultanic whims and decrees as the major force or variable in the Ottoman Empire, this history focuses on the place of the Empire in Europe and the world, using economic analysis rather than Sultanic or harem memoirs to describe the state of the Ottoman subjects.

For the longest time the accepted viewpoint has been that histories of large tracts of land or of people are more or less approximated by court statutes. Fernand Braudel with his "The Mediteranean and the Mediteranean world in the age of Phillip II" went a long way towards changing this view, and with more studies like this, hopefully a more accurate picture of our past will emerge.

Its is amazing how relevant a study of this subject still is for understanding present/recent conflicts or hegemonistic attitudes in their entirety. I would give this book ten stars if I could.

I wouldn't say that social history enters much into the book. The authors have written a straightforward translation and interpretation of the Ottoman archives laying out patterns in revenue from land taxes and customs fees. Reading like a series of focused essays without quite as much synthesis as I would like, still it was a worthwhile read. Most valuable were the new insights I got into the relative importance of trades routes and the organization of land ownership and taxation over time. Also interesting to see was the primacy of slaves and silk in the customs revenue stream, and the impact of commercial motives on Ottoman military expansion. All in all, this is a fine book for those wanting deep knowledge of the early Ottoman economy, civil and state.

People often avoid books like this because they are not as easy readers as "popular" history books, which often do rely on other people's research. Inalcik's work is amazingly detailed and accurate in details. This book is one of his many valuable contributions to this field. Understanding the economic and social forces at play in this time period has an importance beyond the Ottoman history, as most readers of this book would agree.

According to my knowledge this is the best book ever written about Ottoman History. Instead of reading nonscholar books like Lord Kinross's Ottoman Century's I recommend it to everbody. This book studies economic history of Ottoman empire which is essential to understant political history and so on. A must read for all interested about Ottomna history.