Empire of Manners - (Stanford Ottoman World Series: Critical Studies in Empire, Nature, and Knowledge) by James Grehan

Book Synopsis

It is easy to believe that manners are empty gestures, little more than social artifice or practiced etiquette whose sole purpose is to project civility and facilitate social interaction. But if we look more closely, they can tell us much more than we might first suppose, revealing what conventional accounts of state, economy, and religion often ignore. With this book, James Grehan offers a panoramic view of manners and sociability across the eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire, from the Balkans to the Middle East to North Africa. Studying chronicles, biographical dictionaries, and travel accounts, he throws new light on the inner dynamics of Ottoman society during a transitional period in Ottoman history which has too often been misunderstood.

Empire of Manners proposes a new way of thinking about the history of manners, arguing that violence and war-making, as much as civility and etiquette, have a central role in shaping them. The eighteenth century proved to be a turning point in this paradoxical relationship between violence and manners as war-making turned into a substantially more complex and costly enterprise, leaving a deeper and wider social footprint. The interplay between violence and manners, an unlikely couple, unexpectedly narrates the Ottoman path to the modern age.

Review Quotes

"A model of social history, Empire of Manners narrates the Ottoman Empire as a look between individuals, a puff of smoke, a wisp of facial hair, an insult, a pair of shoes. Only as subtle and careful a reader as James Grehan could render this revealing history of the crooked lines between manners and war with such texture and clarity." --Alan Mikhail, Yale University

"At last, a book on Ottoman manners that stresses their utmost importance in a multi-ethnic society acutely attuned to honor, hierarchy, and status. For James Grehan, the seduction of urban civility was continually challenged over the eighteenth century by the out-of-control paramilitary context of hastily assembled countryside militias who swarmed the cities." --Virginia Aksan, McMaster University

About the Author

James Grehan is Professor of History at Portland State University. His previous book is Twilight of the Saints: Everyday Religion in Ottoman Syria and Palestine (2014).